Alms and the man
By Hafizur Rahman
BECAUSE mornings and evenings are very cold in Islamabad, I take my prescribed walk just before lunch. The other day, on my usual beat, as I passed in front of a British diplomat’s house, a pick-up stopped and the driver ladled out for the private security guard a big helping of chana pulao from a cauldron.
I asked him if he was selling or distributing. He said a gentlemen called Mr Lakhani in Sector G-9 sent out the pick-up at that time every day, mainly for the underpaid security guards, and for anyone else who wants to partake of his gesture.
This was not far from the multiple crossing on Margalla Road where I give a five-rupee note every day to an Afghan boy on crutches whose legs were blown away by a land mine and who seeks alms from passing motorists halting there for the red light. The day I don’t have those five rupees, I feel as if I am neglecting my humanitarian duty.
Just as Pakistan is full of crooks and conmen who know innumerable ways of helping themselves to state funds and the public’s money, there are also innumerable Good Samaritans who silently help the poor in as many ways, without publicizing their philanthropy. Even if Mr Lakhani’s pick-up carried a tell-tale banner with his name and address on it (and an appropriate Quranic verse advocating charity) I would have forgiven him.
Well-to-do people have varying views on charity, especially on the habit of giving cash to beggars. I am all for helping beggars, and I don’t believe in the modern social nonsense that it encourages indolence. In fact I intensely hate those self-righteous opulent women sitting in Mercedes and Land Cruisers in the bazaar contemptuously advising begging men and women, “Why don’t you do some work?” I have earned the scorn of some of them whom I had foolishly advised in turn to find a job for even one of the beggars. Who will give them a job?
As for the so-called demeaning habit of begging, it is the most widespread part-time vocation in Pakistan. Every industrialist, businessman, politician and bureaucrat in this country is all the time begging shamelessly (and needlessly) for bank loans, money-earning permits and other favours that he never intends to pay back. It is a national trait, and the military government’s accountability office is full of their stories. Even the Pakistan government has become addicted to begging and can be seen standing with a bowl in its hand outside finance institutions in some of the world’s capitals. So don’t give me that crap.
I am not shy of telling people that I never turn down a beggar and that I collect 13,000 rupees every month for two indigent families that have no other source of income. Of this amount, Rs 3,000 is my personal contribution. And I am not a rich man, having only my pension, though I do earn a goodly sum from my writing. I don’t own a house or any other property. My late wife was one with me in this and we were proud of this “anti-social” practice. In fact she was an inveterate philanthropist in secret. It was she who, despite this secrecy, taught me to talk about our generosity.
Her point was that it was a noble habit, and if by telling people about it we could make them follow our example, it might do good to so many needy families. I am glad that our two daughters walk in our footsteps in this regard, and every now and then they are soliciting contributions from friends and relations for one family in distress or another. They say the amount they ask for is so small that it makes no difference to the givers since they are all well-to-do, while the total so collected makes a lot of difference to the poor at the other end and may mean food for a whole month.
What are the three most popular words uttered by most of us outside the home? Certainly they would be “Baba maaf karo,” the standard reply to importunate men, women and children accosting us for alms. It is a request to be pardoned. Why do we want to be excused? Just because we are talking business with an acquaintance, or eating French fries and ice cream, or just because we don’t have change for the hundred-rupee note in our pocket? We should be asking for pardon from our Maker, who, we believe, watches all our moves. In what way can a beggar in rags excuse us or pardon us?
In the bazaar we may have spent a couple of hundreds on satisfying the whim of an obstinate child for a useless trinket or a video game, but we want to be excused from giving a couple of rupees to persons who, as we are fond of saying smugly, demean their human status by resorting to begging in public. I often say to friends that even if a beggar has hoarded thousands in his hovel or in some hiding place, he deserves charity simply for the reason that he is ready to lay aside his self-respect and grovel for a handout.
I have talked about rich women in limousines admonishing beggars by asking them why they don’t do some kind of honest work. But look at their behaviour when they do come across, say, a girl of ten or twelve, or a woman with an infant in her arms, selling pins and needles and clips and buttons. This is honest work and deserves to be encouraged by letting them keep the change. But no, the habit of haggling cannot be overcome and those poor females are told, “You want five rupees for this tape? Have some fear of God. In Abpara market I get it for three rupees.” The lady never thought of haggling with the owner of the fancy shop who has just charged her more than double the real price for a useless item.
There is no shortage of the needy in this country. Even if you live in the most posh locality there is no escape from the stark reality of grinding poverty, among domestic workers if nothing else. One can do an immense amount of good if one wants to. The other day, Niaz Ali, the security guard at the gate of our diplomat neighbour, was telling me how his wife washes dishes for a begum sahib who has given out her servant’s quarter to them on rent. He said the lady had fined his wife 500 rupees for breaking a plate. “It was an English plate from a dinner set,” he cried with tears in his eyes.
Aside from an occasional tip for doing some outside chore, I give Niaz Ali my collection of old newspapers (I get all of them free) which he sells twice a month. It brings him about 200 rupees. He doesn’t want charity, but is grateful that I pay for his little son’s tutor, whom we have actually hired for our own cook-cum-driver’s school-going son. What I mean to say is that one doesn’t have to go far to look for the needy.
Many of my readers will say, “Doesn’t this man find it in bad taste to talk blatantly about his so-called generosity?” I don’t mind if they say that, as long as they are willing to do what I do!