Would you help this girl?
I saw her one morning on the streets of Mussoorie — a regal mile-high city in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. Or, rather, she saw me. I was out in search of two things: an ATM (I withdrew a couple hundred dollars) and a latte with a croissant (I only found the coffee). She was out begging.
I gave her a dollar, and that would become the source of the only real disagreement I had with my local friend in Mussoorie.
My friend would later tell me that there were practically no beggars in Mussoorie, so this girl had surely arrived from Dehradun, an hour away by car. How did she get here? my friend challenged. She was driven, he added.
I told him I didn’t care. I had just withdrawn $200 and surely I could spare a dollar for a shoeless girl begging. If anything, I felt, I should have given her more. What right have I got to fancy food and gourmet coffee when children in front me can’t afford to eat at all?
She doesn’t even keep the money, my friend pleaded. She’s part of a syndicate.
I told him I still didn’t care. Children shouldn’t be beggars.
On that we agreed, but he used it to underscore his point. By giving her money I was encouraging undesirable behavior.
I told him again that I didn’t care. That was tomorrow’s problem. Today’s problem was that a girl needed food and I was in a position to help.
He told me that I was ruining India, that his country would be better off if people like me stopped forcing our judgements on situations we don’t understand.
He wasn’t against helping people, or against charity. It’s just that he disagreed with my methods. I should be helping people I know, not strangers. How do you know the money isn’t going to criminals, or even terrorists?
How did I?
For that matter, what made this girl more deserving of money than any of the probably millions of others who need help?
In the end, I come back to the question I asked with the taxi driver: What obligation is created by a brief encounter between two people? And does it matter if one of them is a helpless child?
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