Mumbai as a visitor.

capt_mahajan

Never heard his full name before.

navinkurian2002

Just read a similar incident in todays paper was remembered this thread
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/C...ow/2679386.cms

PS :- Not all kids are in gangs .But there is a hierarchy and a food chain. That is why i only give them stuff they can eat or share.

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I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare dream of meeting your heart's longing. Budget Hotels ]

Oyar

Something I have experienced when I was in a train from Chennai to Mumbai around 5 years ago.

In long distance trains - there are scores of travellers who board the trains for short distances. Somwhere in Andhra Pradesh, a frail old beggar came up to our section. I felt sorry for him & while I was pondering on giving him a rupee -
two men opposite me, errupted in a volley of abuses. They kept yelling at him in Telgu & virtually booted him out of there.

After their anger subsided i asked them the reason for their outburst. Apparently - the old man had amassed a fortune by begging. In the local area (where the men were from) he actually owned 3 buildings !!

They being hard working railway employees, were taking home less money in month than what the beggar was taking home in 3 days!

patrickgill

The Mumbai Mirror, like its parent newspaper, and indeed most mainstream India media, is a completely unreliable source of information. Please don't be too swayed by the bakwas they print.
I'm not so familiar with the situation in Bombay, but I cannot think of a reason why it should be that different from Delhi, where the local press also nauseatingly run regular most-beggars-are-rich stories.
Two recent, separate surveys in Delhi organised by the local government's social welfare department found that the large majority of the city's beggars earn less than 50 rupees a day. This is roughly half the national average income.
In short, most beggars are poor and desperate people.
I cannot understand why wealthy middle-class urbanites are so reluctant to believe this, given the nature of the country surrounding them. The precise massiveness of Indian poverty seems to be difficult to determine, but here's an interesting government statistic released a few months back, which suggests 837 million Indians live on less than 20rs a day:

http://www.reuters.com/article/world...21889420070810

A complementary stat: a quarter of the country live below the poverty line, which might be better called the starvation line, it being pegged at a miserable 12rs or so a day -- the amount needed to buy the nearly 2,000 calories a day necessary to stave off wastage and eventual death. (In India, if you're earning 20rs a day, homeless, freezing, without a change of clothes, riddled with TB and unemployed, do not worry -- at least you're not living in poverty.) So why is it considered unlikely that you might meet some of these people ion the streets of Bombay or Delhi?

If your friend found beggars weren't very enthusiastic about the delicious food she was offering them, that may be because food does not help pay the asphyxiating debts saddling many of the people who find themselves at rock bottom in India's cities. Village dowries can easily be 30,000rs and upwards; likewise, the agricultural loans which are increasingly the norm these days can be, as you may have read, suicidally impossible to pay off. A few mouthfuls of food is easily found in metropolises; thus they focus on rustling up the pennies needed to keep the loan sharks from the door of their families in distant villages or crowded city slums.

You're right that some beggars spend some of their earnings on liquor and drugs, but that too does not sound to me like evidence that they're blessed with lives of healthy and happy contentment.

You're probably right that some beggars end up effectively enslaved by gangmasters -- again, that sounds like a miserable existence.

You're right that some beggars lie to better their chances of getting some money. But are you really outraged by this? You wouldn't tell a few harmless white lies if you were desperate? And isn't a certain duplicity an acceptable means of maximising profits for everyone from Fortune 500 companies downwards?

Why read the Mumbai Mirror when you can see the yellowing hair -- a sign of chronic malnutrition -- straggled about the heads of the majority of skinny women and children begging at traffic lights, evidence enough that these people are not scrubbing up and eating at Bukhara every night.

But perhaps the best evidence that begging is not a cushy, non-humiliating way to earn easy money is the fact that you, nor, I presume, any of your friends, would ever consider taking it up.

You have a far more blessed existence than any beggar you're every likely to meet. Have some pity.

p.

navinkurian2002

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/I...24,curpg-1.cms
Beggar Mutiny

Beggars on a busy Delhi street take on a toughie who extorts money from them. Mumbai Mirror’s S Baramulla captures the bloody revolt
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpa...232131994fa19f

machadinha

If my calculating is correct, that's a "staggering" 6,000 Rupees per beggar per year, equalling 103 Euros, 153 US Dollars, or 78 British Pounds, and a pittance even in the Indian context no matter how you look at it. (16.4 Rs. per day, in keeping with the above fine write-up.) Unless it's meant to mean all those beggars make 1800 million Rs. annually and individually, something I have a hard time believing. The trick as always seems to be that a crore or a number of them translates to a helluvalot to the general public mind, who could only wish they "had so much" (and preferably even more of it).

Gee whiz; where do I sign up for an easy life of exploitation and misery.

It baffles the mind, indeed. They're in good company though: It's the same with much of the wealthy middle classes in most places. Poverty and disparity? Just can't exist, even if it's right in your face (or even less so if it is, perhaps, because of the sheer uncomfortableness of it).

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navinkurian2002

Well that works out to 500 rupees per month. I would have thought it was a pittance too ,till I met a security guard who had a family of 4 and had a monthly salary of 1,200 rupees. But again these are just numbers no one really knows what is going on the streets and the abuse is bad ... so money really does not make up for the quality of their lives... Hope more people come out to help these poor souls in any way they can.

kumar

Hi everybody welcome!

May I please know the tariff of the Hotel Suba Palace,Mumbai?
Also I wish to know about good accommodation for about a week
in Mumbai for my students group. I prefer good, neat and
clean;No bed bugs.Suggest Dormitory also with Tariff.
It is very fine, if it is in Nariman Point (nearby NCPA) or
nearby Nariman Point area.Please note that the tariff
must be affordable ( economical). Thanks.

navinkurian2002

http://www.hotelsubapalace.com/rooms.htm
TARIFF
Single Bed Rs. 2,500/- Plus 10 % Luxury Tax
Double Bed Rs. 3,000/-

HOTEL SUBA PALACE
Near Gateway of India,
Apollo Bunder, Bombay - 400 039.

Tel : + 91 - 22 - 2202 0636 (4 Lines)
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Dilliwala

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpa...304 6c1b4281e
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpa...59 21474673ed

...and in Delhi, to a somewhat lesser extent. And in every major city across the land.


Some more that beggar belief:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...ow/1755077.cms
http://publication.samachar.com/pub_....php?id=391603
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5231022.stm

And this from our great friends the Chinese:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080103...0 80103151141
"Beijing police have launched a campaign to clear the city's streets of beggars to create a "civilised and sound" environment for the August Olympic Games, state media reported Thursday."

"Officers will patrol the city 24 hours a day, looking not just for beggars, but also peddlers, pamphlet distributors ( ???) and tricycle taxi drivers...."

machadinha

So what are you trying to say, Dilli? Those beggars are indeed rich, no matter what reasonable figures are thrown in your face?

Navinkurian, the furthest from my mind is to attack you over this, and I don't want it to seem like I do. However I find it striking it would surprise you that a guardsman feeding a family would earn a little over double what a (arguably very average statistical) beggar feeding a family would earn. And that this doubling, at that income level, would be an essential and material difference.

In any case I'd say this bespeaks poverty levels, as addressed very acutely by PatrickGill above, not the happy fate of beggars as such. (And let me repeat him just to be sure):

As for the Olympics, I'm not so sure if the Chinese are very unique in wanting to clean up their streets (with all that entails) during such an event. You only need to google around to see what it's meant on previous occasions and in different locations. A funny account of Amsterdam's bid for the games is here: The Great Victory of the Household Garbage. The Self-Abuse of Nolympics.

patrickgill

That Mumbai Mirror reporter made less than 500 rupees in three weeks of begging! I hope the newspaper learned its lesson.

Dilliwala

I'm trying to say that there are first-hand accounts and reports that one aspect of begging is well-organised to the extent that a few people are rich off it. Coming from you, I'm surprised to read words like "no matter what reasonable figures are thrown in your face".
Who decided what is reasonable - you? Patrick? Who made him an expert? He's basically giving his view of which info and media outlets he believes and which he doesn't, and which figures he believes and which he doesn't. And YOU are purveying them to me as THE truth? What are your qualifications in respect of ascertaining the true extent of poverty in India?
Let me tell both of u - even accepting the standards applied as they are in the example quoted as 'legitimate', the percentage is STILL wrong (and therefore Patrick is wrong to quote them) the reality is 35-40%, not 25%.

I have lived in this country practically all my life and hardly need to be lectured about the reality and extent of poverty that prevails, considering I have never tried to lie to myself or others about the magnitude of it. I live in one of India's richest cities, yet can show u guys parts you have never seen, where the poverty and squalor wud make your hairs stand on end, no matter how well-travelled and seasoned India hands u might be. Yes, right in the nation's capital.

machadinha

Er, yes, I'm sorry if that came out the wrong way. I just wasn't very clear on why you were passing on those links, seemingly implying that beggars there get rich in their sleep (and I know about the problem of a handful of their bosses doing so -- then again and with all due view to perspective and so on, that's what bosses in most fields tend to do, it doesn't provide an answer to how to treat the problem of begging as such. That is to say the problem of their earnings being unjustly distributed wouldn't stop anyone from using any established commercial service, where the same might apply) -- then at the same time coming up with a link that seems to imply the Chinese are unjust in rounding up those very same people.

On the issue of pamphleteers being arrested, that's just what's been happening here to some activists (nothing to do with China) over the past days. They had some posters claiming a leading far right-wing politician here is an extremist (in the form of a cigarette package: "Causes major damage to you and society"). Apparently the authorities were not amused. All I'm saying is you don't need to live in some backwards dictatorship to be confronted with this.

Anyway I failed to see the logic in Indian beggars being somehow suspect, then China being somehow bad for maltreating those same people.

Dilliwala

1. Avid was getting bashed for stating reality. The reality is that organised begging as a racket which makes a few wealthy, at the misery of a large number of others is rampant and wide-spread (note the police protection involved), and the chance that one is giving to someone who is part of such a gang is so high in major cities that, not wanting to perpetuate and promote such activity, most folks don't want to give, period.
The fact that the number of beggars not part of such a racket is much, much larger is a separate issue - the above was being discussed. Avid mentioned a report, which he had no link to. He was accused of spreading propaganda. I haven't been at IM very long, but I've read enough of his posts to know that in general he's forthright, which upsets a few folks at times, but he is not in the business of spreading propaganda. Just thought I'd back him up with the correct link - not that he asked for my help (or needs it).

2. The other few links either support the organised racket issue, or were just interesting, like the 'mobile' beggar who demanded proper courtesy (he's right - his greenbacks are just as green as Nawaz Sharif's or Imran Khan's greenbacks).

3. The ones that report about the few wealthy beggars with large bank accounts, insurance policies and property, etc - yes, "those beggars are indeed rich" by Indian standards. The majority of salaried middle-class people in India are less wealthy. As to the veracity of these reports - u are free not to believe them, I believe them. Let's leave it at that, shall we?

4. I have a very specific view about the Chinese govt, which need not be gone into here (hint: authoritarian). The link just came up when searching for the a.m. first one, but it's the text that grabbed my attention. The idea that the presence of beggars is uncivilised and unsound - I'll say no more. Other than that my govt does this kind of thing too, not removals but cover-ups (I was 18 when I first noticed this done for a major international event in town - some slums had been blocked from view from a main road. That was the beginning of the end of my belief that we shud hide reality from foreigners, espesh first-world ones).
"Officers will patrol the city 24 hours a day, looking not just for beggars, but also peddlers, pamphlet distributors..."
Can't believe I have to spell this out but here goes - we already know that beggars are uncivilised and unsound, don't we? Peddlers we can lump with them also, I guess. But pamphlet distributors???
And we must remember who is making the "uncivilised" charge/determination......
(I wonder if any of those pamphlets say "Free Tibet", e.g.?)


PS:
"Anyway I failed to see the logic in Indian beggars being somehow suspect, then China being somehow bad for maltreating those same people."
I don't even understand this sentence; anyway, I've made myself clear in 4).