Over here, a very common sight at traffic lights are the beggars. You can see children, men, women, handicapped person, or a woman carrying a child begging for money when vehicles stopped at traffic lights. (BTW here they call it signal). In picture 1, a woman and a child is getting ready to "prowl" on any vehicle that stop near them and the second picture is a girl approaching a motorcyclist. As you know, my transport is the "famous" ricksaw, so its kinda easy for them to come to you. If you are a foreigner they tend to come to approach you first before the others. I remember a valuable advice given by a friend of mine, Priscilla Patrick (yep the traffic gal) NEVER give them a dime however pityful they look (infact they all look pityful) as when you give 1, you stand the risk them coming in droves as they are usually in a group. I myself had a rather uneasy encounter once. It happen when i got down from the ricksaw and reach for my wallet to pay the driver. The minute i took out my wallet, they just came surrounding me. To make matters worse, that bloke (driver) does not have any loose change. He went around asking for change while these "scavangers" crowd all round me asking for money. I scolded them, they won't go away, and they dun understand English and i can't speak their language. I was tempted to throw a bundle of 10 rupees that was in my shirt pocket so they can go away, but decided against it. Throwing money, naw not really the right thing to do. So the moral behind the story is make sure you have loose change when sitting in a ricksaw. Anyway if you have watched Slumdog Millionaire, the movie shows these people being owned by a master. I spoke to a local friend of mind who also happened to have watched the movie confirms that this is a fact and its a business.......Can you beat that?........
