"Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation,
That is known as the children's Hour."
There is a saying that childhood is a kingdom in which no one dies. In India, such sayings cannot be taken for granted. For many kids in India today, there is no "children's hour," in the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, no pause in the day's occupation of begging.
Vishal, a six-year-old boy from a very poor family whose income is less than $2 a day, begs every day to earn enough to eat. Whenever or wherever he sees someone, he starts begging, repeating the same line again and again: "give me one buck."
When asked why he begs, he replies innocently that he begs and gives the money to his parents. With that, and without uttering another word, he moves on to the next person.
Many children like Vishal who live far below the poverty line in India do not go to school but only beg. Their day starts with begging and ends with begging. Vishal begs because his family's income is not sufficient enough to give him three meals a day.
However, many parents compel their children to beg because they consider it an easy way to earn money. Suraj, an eight-year-old beggar, says, "Please give to me in the name of God. God will bless you."
Asked why he begs, he replies he is alone. Suraj said he does not have a home and that he stays at the temple. When I followed up on his story, however, I found that Suraj does have parents and that they also beg. When I asked why he lies to people and why he doesn't quit begging, he replied with a smile, "This is our ancestral business."
The children have many different methods in which they beg. Many of them go to tourist spots or places and beg foreigners for money.
A Colombian tourist, Mary, at Mcleodganj, Himachal Pradesh, said with a big laugh, "When I visited India for the first time, a boy, nearly about nine wearing untidy clothes came to me and said, 'Aunt, I have been hungry for three days. Give me food, I do not need money.'
"I bought food for him and I learned he was much more intelligent than most people would think. He sold the food at the same shop for half the price."
In India, child begging is considered a bad act. But behind every child beggar there is a cause. There is a need to check out and eliminate this type of begging from a country like India where people say "children are the country's future." Government and non-government organizations claim they have taken drastic steps to abolish child begging, but the trend persists.
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