I MADE HIM A BEGGER

        The car turned the corner and  I could see an old man with a long beard  , bare bodied perched  on the median seperating the two lanes on the

highway. He was swaying a bit clutching the wall for dear life, seated in an awkward slanting position  looking here and there with morbid fear. I slowed the car and  turned away from the median least he accidentally slipped and fell in front of it.  The median was about 5 feet tall and in no way could he negotiate up on it without suppprt. Why would anyone perch him perilously on it? 

The next day he was seated in the same place and so out of curiosity I slowed the car to get a closer view and he was indeed the old man whom I had treated in the Government hospital . My concern grew and so I kept a close watch over him, whenever I rode that way. I had a premonition that he would fall anytime as he was perched on the median unstabily. I wish he would not fall as my vehicle passed by close to him. 

A few weeks later ,a few yards away from that spot, the traffic was stopped and the police were diverting all the vehicles. I feared the worst and stopped the car by the side to enquire.  I sauntered to the spot and found women and children sitting on the road with empty pots. A few men were  supervising it.The constable who knew me reported that they were agitating for water as the supply to the place was erratic. He added “ For each and everything they stop the highway traffic  and we are unable to take any action as the Panchayat president belongs to a strong opposition party”.

While I was going by that route a little earlier to my place of work, I  noticed the old man being perched on the median by the same President and on an impulse I stopped the car by the side and accosted  him in the tea shop as he was sipping it,to put the facts in place. He looked at me as though I was a toad and said  “ He is an insurance money for the family” . I burlted out ‘How'. He sneered and said    “ You will see for yourself” and went his way.

I could not make head or tail of it. 

For another week  I found him in the same place and I took a detor to avoid him. On a Monday morning when the traffic was rather heavy, I noticed the same road block and diversion  and  I was shocked to see the old man flat on the road, an ambulance just parked by and another young man stretched out on the opposite with a bike dashed and lying in tatters on the pavement. I announced myself as a doctor and felt the old man' s pulse and it was quite stable but fast. I trotted over to the young man and found him breathing and touching his leg where a deep abrasion was spewing blood. I took his kerchief and tied a tourniquet  above it to stop bleeding. Then both were hoisted into the ambulance and it sped away.   I gathered myself to go to the same coffee shop where the step son was sipping tea. There was a rather robust man in kakki pant who looked like a police man handling the mobile very obviously .The step son asked me “ Will both survive the accident” I nodded in the affirmative. He blurted out “ Oh ,my plan isn’t working” . I stuffed all the innocence in my  face. He sneered and said with boastful confidence “ I would have got the insurance  from the man who drove the bike  and the  government”. I was equally baffled. I looked at the kakki wearing  policeman with a questioning look. He maybe thought I was a slow learner and said “ He meant the ex- gratia payment from the government and the money from third party insurance” . I was shocked. He retorted “I have recorded his statement now. As you have also heard it , please confirm with the DSP who is standing over there”.I mulled over it. If he was a honest officer, my confirmation would carry some weight, otherwise he would negate it. Anyhow, I summed up enough courage to accoust him. Luckily I knew him  as a sincere honest officer as I  used to visit the jail often as a medical Officer.   As I left , I saw them walk to the tea shop with a determined look and perhaps to instill some  sense into the stepson, the Panchayat  president. The next week I didnot see the old man and I feared the worst and my premonition was correct. I found him all curled up on the sidewalk with hardly a drap of a cloth on him. I  stopped the car and sauntered over. He was trembling with  chills  and his lips were parched and pale, perhaps  due to starvation. Suddenly a thought struck me.

I returned to the carand picked a handfull of coins which I used to store to dole out to the blind and handicapped beggers at signals. I pulled his shaby dress, stretched it in  front and dropped all the coins in it. I then left.

On my return I found him sitting with a stoic expression and walkers dropping coins.The next week he was better, fully drabbed but with a shabycloth and an  occasional smile. He was onthe road to recovery . 

Perhaps his stepson found him usefull commercially and fed  him. But, alas I had also made him a begger: but the alternative was worse. I  had averted him from starving to death.