PALMS SEEKING ALMS

One fine morning, as I was having a cup of coffee I saw a beggar approaching me. I ignored him and continued to enjoy my coffee. He hung on for a while before leaving me with a grunt. However, the beggar hadn’t left my thoughts. He reminded me of another beggar who was often seen at the Modern Coffee House, a nice little outlet that used to exist just across the road from the place I live. I used to frequent the place and eventually, I had developed a good rapport with Sethji, the owner of the outlet. We used to exchange pleasantries whenever I used to show up at the coffee shop.
The beggar I mentioned about used to come everyday at the shop for his daily dose of alms. Being a generous and pious man, Sethji used to give him money with a smile. This encouraged the beggar to appear at the doorsteps of the coffee shop everyday. What had attracted my attention to this mundane affair was that I had seen the same beggar “measuring the road” or lying on the roadside in an inebriated state. Moreover, the man looked fit enough to work and earn money. But having been given into drinking he must have shamelessly accepted begging as a way of life – a way of life which brought him easy money. Even if he had a “bad day at work” elsewhere, he was sure to get money from Sethji. Having turned a blind eye on these things for a while, I couldn’t help bringing myself to talk to Sethji when I visited the coffee shop, about a couple of months ago.
Having told him what I had been seeing, I asked him the necessity of giving alms to the beggar, when the money was being abused. To this Sethji replied that he couldn’t help giving money to the poor man. I suggested that Sethji could give him something to eat, instead.
“I used to. But he insisted that I give him money only.”
“Then you should have chased him away.”
“Nooooo! We must help the needy…” replied Sethji, as if I had uttered something very offensive. Nevertheless, I kept insisting, “By paying him to get drunk?!”
“My dear fellow, I am worried about my duty towards the needy; let him worry about his.”
“Sethji, giving alms is fine if it benefits the person receiving it. If one has hampered other’s life then that is a sin.”
“Er…well, I do not agree. What I believe is each person is responsible for his own act. By giving alms to the poor I have done my duty and will receive God’s blessings. If he does not utilize the money for his good, he is responsible for it not me.”
At this point I didn’t feel like continuing the argument. Sethji’s opinion on the matter differed considerably from mine. I let the issue die there, and continued to turn my blind eye on the thing.
Few days after the conversation, about a month and half earlier, I met a gloomy faced Sethji as I entered the coffee shop. On enquiring about his low-spirited state that morn, he narrated to me an unfortunate incident that occurred to him the previous evening. A man had been hit by Sethji’s car. The man happened to be in an intoxicated state and came under Sethji’s car while trying to cross the road. The unfortunate drunkard was none other than the beggar who used to come to Sethji’s coffee shop everyday. This fact aggrieved the Sethji further. I couldn’t stop myself from telling him that the sin of having killed the beggar would not have been on his conscience had he not done the “good deed” of thoughtlessly giving money to that fellow, making the beggar drink and then attempt crossing the road.
Sethji was deeply hurt by the whole incident and could not recover from the resulting depression. A month later he succumbed to his hurt good self.
I wondered whether the Sethji committed a mistake by being concerned for a fellow human being. Would it have helped had the beneficiary been equally concerned about himself?
I emptied my cup of coffee and got back to the busy unconcerned world.
(PS: The people, incidents and places mentioned in the above article are fictitious and purely a creation of imagination. Any resemblance to real people, incidents and places is deeply regretted. It was not my doing – Sorry, it just happened.)