Flash Post 141!

Button, since we are in Kolkata for a day, Dost and I dropped in at Flury’s, one of our favourite haunts, for a pineapple pastry and a cup of tea.

On our way in, we found an aged woman, around 80 years of age or older perhaps, begging outside the cafeteria. I promptly took out my purse to give her some change when Dost beat me to it and handed over some coins to her. We took a table close to the window so we could also soak in the Park Street scene outside.

Just opposite Flury’s is this book-seller who Dost said had been around since the time he was a young man and used to buy books and magazines from him. After we had ordered our pastries and tea, Dost suddenly noticed the same beggar going over to the book-seller to hand over to him all the coins and currency notes she had collected till that time.

We surmised that maybe the old beggar was his mother who was still earning a living from whatever means or someone who was paying the book-seller a fee for providing her with two square meals a day and a shelter above her head.

4 Comments

Malika Barot October 14, 2015 at 6:27 am

I see a lot of beggars who are very old can barely walk. It makes me cry from inside. Why can’t Government do something about the old and the young kids who beg on the streets.

Reply
- author October 14, 2015 at 3:59 pm
  
  Malika,
  
  Giving alms to beggars is not the solution. Perhaps the government will wake up some day and look into this issue and try and resolve it. Let’s hope for such a day.
  
  Reply
Ashish Gada October 14, 2015 at 8:00 am

I don’t think the old lady was book-seller’s mother. No person in this world is so insensitive to make his mother work at that age that too in front of his own shop.

Reply
- author October 14, 2015 at 3:11 pm
  
  Ashish,
  
  Maybe you or I would not do it but the world we live in is a very tough place to be in and the truth, most times, is even more difficult to swallow.
  
  Your innocence is charming. Stick to it.
  
  Reply