Begging dilemma - Lodhi road (our hotel is almost at the east end of Lodhi) is a fairly wealthy area with lots of office space and non profit type organizations and a major six lane east west thoroughfare south of the city center.  A junction in the center of the road draws a small group of regular beggars.  Perhaps it is just one family or a combination of a couple.  Mother often has a grimy baby on her hip and makes a repeated  pitiful gesture of hand pinched to take food moving to mouth with a mournful 'Ma'am, Ma'am.'  I have steeled myself to merely pray for this little group.  Bert and I walked up the road earlier this week and passed the cluster of children.  One little chap has a marvelous curly moustache drawn on his face.  I pointed him out to Bert who confessed that he had given him something earlier.  I was amazed.  Didn't we agree that we were perpetuating a vicious cycle by given anything to beggars?  Bert said, yes, but this chap was a bit more than a beggar.  Two days later my tuktuk had to stop at the light and I got a front row seat to watch Master Moustachio.  He had some weighted string on the back of his little baseball cap which he started twirling before he launched into his 30 second choreography routine.  Michale Jackson would have been proud of him.  My tuktuk driver laughed when I mentioned the similarity, but rolled his eyes when I handed over a small bill.

I want to go back and film the little chap (I think he may be six, but hard hard to tell given how poor his food may be) and take him a bag of food and books as payment for his excellent entertainment, but struggling to discern whether this is good or not.  Reading Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, I wonder about making anyone jealous of my Charlie Chaplin Jackson and whether I inadvertently encourage him to stick with his Lodhi street corner when he might have other positive options.