Saturday, July 4, 2009

Street Smart

While I was reading a post -"Think about it- HARD" on Gupta's blog, I remembered this experience I was meaning to post about since a long time. Now seems like a good time to do it.
:::::::

Well, there's this 10-11 yr old boy in our neighbourhood who cleans bikes and scooters for a living. He used to do it around the area where we used to hang out (AFJ... remember.. ;)).
So we'd often seen him around, and even talked to him. Apparently he went to a school, and used to work in the evenings. We were mighty impressed by this (..us being much older and still whining about mere schooling!). To help him out, we used to give him 10-20 bucks each time, just for wiping a bit of out activas.. and rather talked to him listened to his stories.
One such day while wiping the activa, he asked us for some money so he could buy some drugs for an infection.
Now, this was our turn to help him out. We offered to take him with us to the Govt hospital, where he'd be consulted for free; and even offered to get him free medicines. At this he panicked, and started making excuses. At first we thought he was just shy, so we tried to convince him for some time. But he wouldn't listen and tried to back off, so we let him go..
It was then, that the shop-wale bhaiya told us that he used to make up such stories to anyone who'd listen, just to con money out of them.
:|
[And must say he did it pretty convincingly too!]

Later, while we talked about it to other friends, it turned out, that he'd told one of my friends that he'd stood first in the class, while around the same time he had filled me up with the story of standing second in class and ". . just missing out by a margin. .which I'll cover up the next time.."
--He didn't even go to school!
:|

11 comments:

  1. I really like ur writing style, simple, straight and eloquent

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  2. we shouldn't be judging him by his lie... he's just a kid.there must have been no one to spell HONESTY and its value for him. although stories like this do make us raise an eyebrow when some poor fellow asks for help

    Solution >> be smart enough to catch a lie.
    >>> and be wise enough to inculcate moral values in these kids (may be i m being hypocritical, but if i m in rite mood i wud like to do so one day)

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  3. @pi: thanks :)

    @manjit: well yeah. actually this was just an incident that happwnwd to mw. and seriously i cant figure out whether to get angry at the kid, or feel sorry for him..
    ermm..'inculcating values', is really an idealistic idea. not possible in a lecture or something dude! need a societal role for that!

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  4. Hmm...
    First of all, have been waiting for some post from you since long! It feels good to see not one but two ! :-)

    all this 'inculcating values' thing doesn't work up with them. They don't give an ear to it, forget thinking on it.
    Infact, they wud end up cursing us for wasting their time.

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  5. play ur part...... i reckon he's no stray kid... u seem 2 knw him on regular basis.
    too idealistic... but tat doesnt mean its not practical. (i myself don't know what wud i've done)may be once in 100 times i wud kinda follow the idealistic way. :|

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  6. @TJ: yeah. that's crude, but true. maybe not teach em values, but the least we can do is discourage such a thing!

    @manjit: well, this bit happened about a year ago. now that my beloved coffee shop's shut down..i've lost all touch :(
    and well..he just acknowledged us for the fact that we gave him money. didn't see much of him around after he found out that we'd learnt about his little tricks.
    as for doing the right thing- yes, you've hit the target! this might not be the scene, but i totally go by doing the 'idealistic' thing once in a while.

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  7. kids r supposed 2 kid na he he :)

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  8. such stories are all around us. its pretty much a scam and many families are reared thanks to the fathers successfully conning everyone. in this case, its a kid and he can be shown the right path

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  9. This reminds me of the incident, when this same boy asked me for some money so that he could buy something to eat. I, being the person I am, made sure to buy him a sandwich and not give him the money. How he must have cursed me for this!

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  10. I know ... really weird isn't it .. to be conned ..n tht too by a kid...

    just tht we never know what circumstances exist at his end ..i mean, wrong as it may be... he is just a little boy isn't he..with godknowswhat problems in life ...

    still.. sorry u had to face this ..n dont lose faith in the good of man (and child) coz of this one incident ...

    @ healer geller, blog updates!

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  11. @shruti: haven' lost faith in humanity even after all these yrs in med school! :) this seems like a smallish incident after all that trauma!

    anddd lets have updates from YOUUUU! X(

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=)

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