It's just good business

Stealing the title from a dialogue said by Lord Beckett in the Movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, I move on to the incident which blew past me all of a sudden and hit me right in the face. Sitting alone in one of the several thousand auto-rickshaws racing along on the Mumbai suburb roads; I gazed at the vehicles going past and buildings flowing past at a steady pace.

Signals are commonplace in Mumbai and soon my ride came to a halt. As the signal turns red, the beggars get into position. The cars stop at the red light, and then their business begins. Moving from vehicle to vehicle, they use their poverty to ask for money; they use their disfigured bodies; they use the name of God to exploit people; they use their sex to earn their living.

This is basically what the rickshaw driver said to me once this business started taking place.

Yeh log ka toh roj ka hai. Subeh uthte hai aur sidha chalu. Aise kaam karke saale log din ke hajar rupaye kama lete hai. Dono waqt murgi khaate hai aur sath main daru aur cigarette, voh bhi mehenge vale. Kamate toh hum bhi hai, but kharcha bhi utna ho jaata hai- bacho ki padhai, bijli ka bill aur sab. In logo ko toh kuch nahi bharna padta. Unke bacho ko toh kuch padhna bhi nahi padhta, paida huye aur sidhe kaam pe. Pura din yehi karte hai- uthte hai, sidhe kaam chalu,jitna milta hai utne main se khaana lete hai aur baki ka daru pe. Aur kabhi bhi unko paise ki kami nahi hoti kyonki koi-koi log toh 100-200 rupaye bhi de dete hai.

Jindagi main unka ek hi kaam hai, aur voh hai bacha paida karna; jitne bache, utni jyada aamdani unko.

Hey Bholenath! Aur yeh aurat ko dekho; aisa nahi ke kuch dhang ka kaam karke paise kama legi! Idhar signal pe aake h**** banke kamana hai fokat mein. Yeh sab iss signal pe sabse jyada chalta hai kyonki panch raste milte hai yahan. Bahut dhanda hota hai.

(This is their daily business. They wake up early in the morning and the first thing they do is start begging. Doing such jobs, these people earn approximately Rs.1000 per day. Both their meals consist of chicken, alcohol and cigarettes, all of the best quality. Even we manage to earn this much daily, but spending patterns also differ- I have to pay for my child’s school fees, and the bills and what not. These vagrants don’t have to pay a dime for anything. Their children don’t even need studies, all they have to do is ask. Their schedule consists of just some things- wake up, and beg. They buy food from what they get, and from the remaining they buy their alcohol. And the main thing is that they never have a scarcity of money; some foolish rich guy comes and gives them Rs. 100-200.

But the only work they have in their life is to get kids; the more number of kids they have, the more is their daily earning. Hey Lord! And see this woman, she can earn by doing some odd job at anyone’s house. But no, she wants to earn at this signal by posing as a homosexual. And this takes place maximum at this signal because 5 roads meet at this signal, this leads to maximum income.)

Not a lot of this struck me as important, but the point about having kids took me back in time to the Economics lecture I had gone through. A picture with a question tag: “Why do you have kids when you are poor?”

And the answer to this by a poor woman with a dozen or so kids was:”I have a lot of kids BECAUSE I am poor.”

Seeing it from a poor family’s point of view, this strikes me to be the perfect option. But seeing it as a third person, it poses itself to be selfishness and exploitation with the combination of child labour as well. It is not at all beneficial to the economy and to the general public, and to the poor people who earn by working honestly. This malpractice also works to prevent children from getting educated and living honest and sophisticated lives; and makes them continue their lifestyle from generation to generation in the dark lives of poverty.

To just sum it up, ITS JUST GOOD BUSINESS…