Begging for Living

i'm sick of our political situation and hence an allegorical piece about our psyche :-]

Begging for Living

There is a popular saying - Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn - but many people here beg day in and day out conveniently ignoring the significance of working and many of them deceive by taking resort to heinous means to get sympathy of the people. Writes Faizul Khan Tanim

A case study: A moderately-dressed man wearing proper sandals comes to Green Road, opposite to the clinics each day. And as the shopkeepers say, he comes as a prince, goes to an alley and changes to a pauper in rags and sporting his scrawny looks, start begging. Residents say, he has almost two cell phones for the past ten years and lives quite a decent life without having to worry about food or shelter for him or the family. This is only one of the cases from thousands found in our majestic Dhaka.

Putrefied hands of beggars coming through a car’s window or an auto rickshaw door imploring passengers for money at every traffic signal has become a common experience for commuters going to workplaces or returning home.

Wearing dirty and torn clothes, some of these beggars are blind, some limp with no arms or legs and totally handicapped, strolled by another person. They are seen begging everyday at the busy city intersections.

Of course a lot of these beggars have genuine deformity but most of them fake disability and deceive people pretending to be a handicapped or making appeals in crooked voice. They displaying X-ray or medical reports, limps, pretend speech disorders like muteness, which are only few of the ways they use to draw attention of the commuters. But most sadly, a large number of them are completely fine and the only reason they are in this profession because it fetches more earning than regular work.

The city has almost 370 intersections and this reporter spoke to 30 beggars from different intersections of Dhaka and found out that the regular income of each of these scroungers not only surpasses the average daily income of the hard earners after paying their daily deposits to the owners for a half-day shift – rickshaw pullers (Taka 300), brick breakers (Taka 250), cng-autorickshaw drivers (Taka 850). And to my amazement, each beggar has a daily income of Taka 600 to 1000 of money, TAX free, from Gulshan and Banani areas; at least Taka 300 from the other intersections including Sonargaon Hotel Saarc fountain circle, Shahbag Chottor and surrounding areas of Hotel Ruposhi Bangla, Motijheel, Baitul Mukarram and more. These intersections swarm with beggars standing in distinct gestures to beg money and gone are the days of giving Taka 2 or 5. A minimum of 10 bucks will book you a place in heaven (as they say so) without praying to God that is, otherwise, be prepared to be lashed and verbally abused at times by these choosy beggars. Their income increases and hits jack pot on Fridays and special days like Eid and other national holidays.

There is allegations from street peddlers, street-side shopkeepers that sometimes, these beggars do pay deposits and that to the intersection on-duty traffic police officers to hold the signals longer for better begging opportunities. However, the sergeants from Gulshan, SAARC Fountain circle and some other important intersections vehemently denied such claims and refused to talk. But one traffic constable from Topkhana road requesting anonymity said, “The beggars do disrupt traffic control at the VIP intersections mostly during off-peak hours as the movement of vehicles there gets stalled by at least one to two minutes for these beggars”.

It must be mentioned that during the ICC Cricket World Cup on 2011, hundreds of hawkers and beggars on Dhaka’s major roads and at traffic stops, were driven out and temporarily evicted as a government initiative to keep the streets clean. Senior citizens of the city allege that there are no proper vagrant homes and even if there are few monitored by Dhaka City Corporation, they are in terrible shape.

Most of the beggars admit that they had either lost job or had been very low paid while working but a lot of them will not agree that they lost their limbs or feet in a shootout with the police or armed guards during committing crimes like burglary. And of course, those who are subject to abuse by the local goons, losing either body parts or eyes, will never agree to their misfortune, fearing attacks by the local godfathers.
Abdul Quddus, a beggar from Elephant road signal says both his feet are paralyzed after he had a strong typhoid during childhood. He was a handicap ever since and found no option but to beg on the streets when he grew old. This has been his profession for the past four to five years.

But another beggar Aklima Begum in front of Gulshan Azad Mosque said, “Yes, I will confess, my daily income from begging is more than the amount that can be earned by working 8 to 12 hours a day in a factory, work at homes as house helps or break bricks and stones at construction sites and I do not wish to change it”.

The beggars at a Motijheel intersection said that previously, the office times in the morning and rush hours after 2pm and 5 pm when the schools close and offices closed consecutively, were the prime times for begging. But thanks to the ever-increasing traffic congestions, now everyday seems like an Eid day.

“You won’t feel good early in the morning as you start a fresh day when you see dirty hands of beggars coming through your car’s window, absolutely pestering till you don’t give anything. It’s a total nuisance on the street especially when you are worried if you will be able to reach work in time,” said Anisur Rahman, a banker, stuck in a tailback at Shahbag Chottor.
Quite often, it is seen that traffic congestion keeps on building as the beggars would desperately keep their hands inside the cars even when the traffic signals turn green. Sometimes a beggar’s hand gets stuck in the car window or a car wheel moves over their feet.

Some beggars are highly innovative and apply techniques to earn more from begging. There are some women who hire babies from slums on payment to convince the commuters, as they think the strategy is quite fruitful to draw sympathy of people – these are the better ones while others will bring feces or a pot containing snake and they will threat you, it’s either money or their wrath.

*This article was first published in The Independent - http://theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=31&date=2013-04-05

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People with functional limbs and feet begs without shame

The Beggars Association of Bangladesh