Beggars Need Much More Than Your Money

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

I was visiting India. When I left the restaurant, I found myself in front of a 5-year-old beggar. I felt a lump in my throat and overwhelming frustration.

Interestingly, the root cause was not the beggars themselves or the dishonest behavior of some of them like you might think.

The terrible distortion of the values — directly correlated to the system unfairness and the global wealth imbalance — was the trigger.

Coming back to the story, I didn’t have any left change and noticed her mom was standing not far from us with a baby girl (probably two years old) in her arms.

Fortunately, my friend had some money which he offered to the girl, witnessing my sadness. I was so grateful, but I didn’t feel it was enough.

I started talking to the girl and building a rapport, which I love doing with strangers. I hugged her warmly and gave her some of my big and noisy kisses.

We were going in her mommy’s direction while she stopped me and opened her small arms in a way to ask for another hug. I was beyond honored. 

I came down to her level and got the best hug ever. I couldn’t prevent my tears from flowing like a river.

Her mom thanked me so sincerely with her body language. The baby girl was looking at me with her gorgeous sparkling eyes.

She deserved the same treatment as her old sister. The mom’s facial expression was indescribable. She didn’t need to say a word. I felt overwhelmed!

When my friend and I were about to go, I said bye. The baby girl extended her begging hand on an auto-pilot mode. Her mom immediately reacted and asked her to say “bye”! I had a blast.

There are so many things I ignore, so many I will probably never know, so many I will always have some doubt about. But what I know for sure is my being and the power of my energy & free acts of kindness in uplifting and inspiring people around us, and in building trust in the long run.

Takeaway

We were born in different environments we never chose in the first place — some way less privileged than others. Beggars didn’t ask to spend their whole life in survival mode.

For the vast majority of them, they didn’t even get access to knowledge, so that they might see there is much more than they know. Given the opportunity, they could even choose to take their power back.

This injustice is making me wonder and feel lost every time I start thinking about it.

In the absence of any radical and global solution to change their miserable reality, can we treat beggars with dignity instead of second-class individuals?

Can we stop for a moment, and instead of judging them and getting annoyed, provide them with some genuine love, which could make their day? I’m pretty sure this is how all kind-hearted folks would want to be remembered.

With love, Myriam