Compromise

Manoj fiddled with the controls of his car air conditioner. At his last trip to the workshop for a routine check, the service attendant had assured him it was working fine and had thrust a thermometer in his face as evidence. Yet, the rising heat outside the car gave Manoj an itchy feeling under the collar of his expensive new shirt, and he tried to coax more cold air out of the infernal gizmo.

Manoj was always stuck in a traffic jam at the very same traffic signal every day on his way to work. He had tried varying the time at which he left home, but that did not help much. He ached to get to the cool environs of his centrally climate-controlled office. Manoj cursed as he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. He was running late again. He had stopped wearing his wrist-watch a year ago, ever since he bought his fancy mobile phone. It gave him an excuse to pull the phone out of his pocket and show it off to the others while he checked what the time was.

Manoj peered through his windscreen. The traffic crawled forward, and he could see another familiar sight - the traffic-light-beggars were at it again. Little children, some with an even smaller child on the hip, were extending their palms to ask for help. He watched as they made their way, barefoot on the hot tar road, to only the cars with open windows, riders on scooters and motor-cycles, and passengers in autorickshaws. That was where they had a chance of getting some money. Experience had taught them not to waste their time with tapping on the closed windows of the air-conditioned cars. Those cars had in them the rich people who looked at them out of the corner of their eyes and then gazed away at the distance in stony silence, content that the thick window glass would keep the "trash" out of their pristine lives.

Manoj considered himself to be a person with above average social conscientiousness. Oops, he hated using big words. This daily encounter with the beggars preyed heavily on his mind. His two different personas had a running dialogue going inside his mind.

Manoj-1 : "Look, you must help these poor unlucky beings to lead a better life. Give them enough money to have some decent meals for a few days at the very least."

Manoj-2 : "Hey, don't spoil them. It's better that they learn how to fish than be given some bread. (Manoj-2 was never quite accurate with his quotations). Why don't they learn some trade, do some work and earn an honest wage ?"

Manoj-1 : "Just look at them ! They are kids. Child labour is not allowed, right ? How do they earn from working ? Go on, give them enough money so that they don't need to beg in the hot sun."

Manoj-2 : "Why don't their parents look after them ? It's people like you who encourage begging in our country. The more freebies they get at this young age, the less inclined they will be to get an education and work as they grow older. Let them be hungry a while, that will compel them to work."

Manoj was jolted out of his reverie by the tapping on his window. The grubby palms flat on the glass belonged to a small thin girl with dirty hair and dirtier ragged clothes. The snot running down from her nose did not dim the wide smile on her lips. She knew this was futile, trying her luck at a rich man's car, but what the heck, she may as well try. Manoj looked at her. His personas were engaged in a noisy debate inside his head now. Manoj could not look away. The child pranced from foot to foot as the hot tar burned the soles of her bare feet. The look on her face turned from impish grin to a practised pathetic wail showing many days of hunger.

Manoj couldn't take it any more. He reached into the drawer under his dashboard for a one-rupee coin. The only coin there was a five-rupee coin. He scrabbled in the drawer but, much to hs discomfort, that was the only coin there. He lowered his window glass. As the blast of hot air hit his face, he thrust the coin in the child's grubby hands and said "Here, eat something and also buy a newspaper to read". That should take care of food as well as education. He felt smug at the compromise he had thought up for himself on the spur of the moment.

He wound up the window glass quickly, cursing as it would be a while before the inside of the car would get cool again. He quickly joined up with the traffic moving forward. His turn at the green signal had finally come.

Manoj always died a little inside his heart at this daily beggar-encounter. He now looked forward to his cool office where he would work hard and drive these thoughts from his head.

Manoj-1 and Manoj-2 chuckled and patted each other on the back. They had both won in their own small way, as they did all the time, every day ...

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