Of Street Urchins and Humaneness

Today I happened to see a slew of these young street-urchins all over the place. Maybe, beggar-kids even.

Incident 1: I was parking my bike at this one-single free parking slot at a crowded roadside market. These young boys – some 7-8 years of age – were poking hands into every open bike pocket that they could lay them upon. Any documents, papers, grocery items that the unsuspecting owner had left there would be gone. I stood there, wondering whether too reprimand them or not. From their point of view, they were just trying to earn a few extra bucks. Sucks to the careless, moneyed class. I decided to remain a mute spectator to there deft stealing fingers.What would you have done?

Incident 2: After dining out, when I was returning to my car, another of such kids was playing with a stray dog, tickling away the playful puppy into fits of pleasure. For a fleeting moment I had a thought: Was the street-urchin kid more like a puppy than like a Yuppie-bred kid who struts around in jerseys of his favorite soccer team?

On my getting in the car, I have no idea why (or how) he did this, a kid of 8 years, he opened the other door and tried to come and sit in! My natural reaction was to stoccatedly scream at him. The poor thing shrunk away like a puppy would have done. On second thoughts, maybe I should have granted him a joyride. He took pleasure in forcefully slamming the car-door at my face. Then he went on to beg for another rupee…