Say NO to beggars

·         Does the sight of beggars on the streets, worry you?

·         Do you feel, sorry for them?

·         Do you want to help them in some way or other?

If yes, please take my advice. Say No to them. What I am telling you, may be contradictory to the popular, that by giving alms to a beggar, we have done him some good, we have gained some good karma or whatsoever but in fact we are doing a social harm of breeding more and more beggars in the country. Tossing a coin in the beggar’s bowl may be considered by few as a sign of affluence and magnanimity, but in fact we are encouraging a social crime.

Begging is a social crime. Begging gives a bad image of our country, to the rest of the world. We are a country with huge intellectual capital, large man power force and many great social, spiritual and business leaders. We need to be looked up and not looked down.  But because of beggary prevailing in our country, we are looked down. Dan Boyle in his movie, “Slum dog billionaire” has exposed this begging practice in India, to the rest of the world. It is such a shame for our country. But we are just happy about the movie winning an Oscar award!

India is developing at a fast pace in terms of economic development. Statistics show, that our GDP and per capita income has increased. If that is true, then the number of beggars in the street should reduce. Is it not?  But in spite of all the positive developments, the number of beggars in India has increased significantly.

While there is so much of labor need in this country, why should people to resort to begging? Believe me, it is not poverty that has pushed them to take this decision. It is a lazy profession they have chosen, to make a comfortable living. Gone are the days, when people felt a sense of shame to beg. Today, begging has become a thriving occupation of many. On an average, a beggar earns anything from Rs.80 to Rs.200/- a day, which is in par with the daily wages of a factory worker. This easy way of making money, has become a preferred source as compared to having to put 8 hours of hard work of a daily labour.

In fact, I too have been supporting this social crime for quiet long. Even when people told me not to do so, I never use to heed to their words. I used to say, “What difference does it make for me, if I shell out a few coins, but at least the beggar can buy a cup of coffee”.

My perception of beggars changed, to a great extent after I saw the Tamil movie, “NaanKadavul” which talks about how begging has become a mob business, like any other mafia activity. In the movie, they show how the beggars are maimed, so that they become icons of sympathy to the general public and thereby they can earn more.  Maiming involves deforming the body, limb or face, by causing external injuries, through crude and cruel means. I thought it was just an exaggeration, but I came to see some live examples of this, in one of my visit to the SabarimalaAyyapan temple. It is then I decided that I will not encourage this practice.

I am not saying that there is no real poverty in this country. Of course there is a lot of poverty and genuine needs. If you wish to help the people with genuine needs, I suggest that you do it through some organized sources like World Vision, CRY, Helpage India or any such organization that is committed to enhance the life of the deprived and downtrodden You can also volunteer to be a member of any social organization like the Rotary Club, Lions Club or Giants club, who are working on specific projects with a long term plan. In this way, you can reach out to the needy, in a more appropriate way.

God has blessed all of us, with a soft heart; so that we are sensitive to the needs of our surrounding and help those are in need. The beggars have capitalized on this emotion of ours and made it a profession. Let us not become victim to our emotions. Let us not encourage “beggary” anymore. Let us learn to say NO to beggars.

Happy Reading,

D.SenthilKannan

Article dated Feb'2012

Are we giving space to others?

Quiet recently, I attended a 5 day TCI workshop. TCI is a unique concept developed by a German Psychologist, Ms.Ruth Cohn.  TCI stands for Theme Centred Interaction, which means a group of peopleinteract with each other on a particular theme. This interaction helps the participant to gain more insight and a better understanding of some real life situations and challenges, from different perspectives. Every TCI Workshop has a theme. The workshop I attended was on the theme, “Do men and women lead differently? We had two international facilitators, Mr.Konrad from Germany and Mrs.Annelis from Switzerland to handle this workshop, which made it more interesting.

The TCI session titles are different and interesting. One of the sessionsof this workshop was, “Drawing together with you and you…. finding my own space”.  In this session, our facilitator formed 3 groups of 6 people each.  We were given chart board with a box of crayons. The instruction given to us was, each group should do a drawing in the chart provided, but the rule is that the members within the group should not discuss or talk within the group. The time given was 15 minutes. This was a nice challenge, because there was no scope for planning what we are going to draw. So, our group sat on the floor together with the chart board in the centre. I took a yellow crayon and started drawing a sun, on the top of the chart. My team members seemed to get a clue, that we could draw scenery together and one of them started to draw a flock of birds with a black crayon and another person drew the clouds with a blue crayon. I soon followed it up, by drawing a mountain range across the chart with a brown crayon. In no time the chart paper became a beautiful scenery with a flowing river, tall trees, blooming flowers, a house, people, cattle and other things.

When the time was over, we were pleasantly surprised to see, that our drawing has come out nicely, inspite of we not speaking a single word with each other.

Now it was time for the facilitators to give their observation of each team. The facilitator, when giving his observations about our team, captured the essence of how we worked as a team. He pointed out that, it was me, who initiated the drawing, which he mentioned as a positive leadership trait. He said a leader is one who initiates. These words made me feel good about myself. He then said something that was like an invisible hammer striking hard on my head.He said, that I did not just stop with initiating the drawing, I went on to use large amount of the space in the chart paper to draw the mountain range. By doing so, I have been insensitive to the space requirements of my team members.  In the large chart paper, everyone should find space for their expression, but by occupying a large extent of space in the chart board, I have curtailed the expression of the other members of the team.

I realised that very moment, what he said was right. It was an eye opener to me.I was astounded to find that our subconscious mind gets manifested by our behaviour, exposing our true inner nature, even without having to say a single word. I felt bad about myself, but did not miss to take the learning of the day.  I learnt that I need to give others their needed space, so as to help them find expression of their true potential. I have been unconscious of my own mistake.When he spotted this out, I realised that I have aninner tendency to do more than what is expected of me. This doing more than what is expected, is not a good trait, when it comes to working as a team. As a team, every team member should feel a spirit of contribution to a project accomplished. By doing all the things, that others could do, we are in fact robbing from them, the joy of teamwork. In team work it is never ‘my work’, but it is ‘our work’.

Most of us commit this mistake unconsciously, at work place, social organisations or even family. We tend to dominate the show. We want to see the end result to be exactly the way; we mentally imagined it to be. But in a collaborative world, this sort of thought infringement would leave a negative mark of not being a good team player.r.A creative collaboration of ideas canin fact give a unique outcome, which an individual mind can never conceive.So, next time, when you are working on a team project, ask yourself, “Am I givingothers the needed space, to express themselves?”.

Happy Reading,

D.Senthil Kannan

Article dated March 2012