A few days ago, my roommate and I were at a shop next to our hostel to sell old newspapers for recycling, before I left for Bahrain. We were waiting for our papers to be weighed when a boy who I assumed to be about eight, but looked much younger, came and stood alongside us. He was dressed completely in red and was holding in his hands flat, rectangular strips of metal. He asked the shopkeeper if he would buy it from him, but the man replied that there was a shop a little ahead that would buy metal, as he only dealt with paper. I was a little puzzled because there was only a hospital and rehabilitation centre that lay between the paper shop and the hostel and no shops. A little later the boy returned and said he didn't find the shop. The two men told him something which I couldn't understand as it was in rapid Hindi. As we were heading back to the hostel, my friend said, "Wasn't he cute? It's a pity they turned him away." "What did those men tell him in the end?" I asked. "Oh, didn't you notice? They were just driving him away. There are no shops ahead and no metal shops here. Those two were showing him two different directions, to confuse him." I considered for a moment whether to give him the money I had just received from the shopkeeper. However, I changed my mind because that would be teaching him to beg and he was already far ahead, looking for another shop where he would be accepted. The incident brought to mind a line from one of my favourite books Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram: "There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor." There was something about that boy that kept his picture fresh in my memory. Maybe it was the way he was treated, because if there's one thing that hurts me, it is seeing true sincerity going unreciprocated. There is no heartlessness greater than lying to a little child and giving him false hopes. That eight-year-old may have a family or none. He must have been trying to get money to support them, or just himself. To get his hands on those metal strips, he must have hunted a long time in the garbage dumps. Unlike his contemporaries, he didn't opt for the easier way of doing things, that is begging for money. Instead, he chose the hard way of making a living and was prepared to face rejection. I've just completed my first year in university, away from home. I hope I don't sound superfluous when I say that a greater part of my lesson was learnt on the streets of Mumbai. When German filmmaker Lutz Konermann visited my college to screen his movie Dharavi, Slum for Sale, he wondered why so many of us had never been there and asked a rather pointed question: "So you think you can learn nothing from the poor?" The world has been accused of making much of the poverty here, but unlike other places destitution stares at you in the face and you can't afford to ignore it. In India, Gandhian principles are used as slogans on political platforms, mouthed by rulers on state visits to New Delhi and used as a cloak for hypocrisy in the country. It is however, only among the poor that you see any of that in practice. While Gandhi is more widely known for his non-violence, he was also a firm believer in the dignity of labour. It was his belief that each man should be self-reliant by making his living out of the limited means that he possesses and take pride in that. While it's easier to place blame on the government for not providing jobs, a degree of blame is also on us for not having made the best of what we've been given, which is precisely what that little boy helped reinforce. I don't believe that either poverty or unemployment will be eradicated by 2020, as is India's target, or ever. But a little less apathy and a little more humility will go a long way in making life better for all of us. ¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group 'A lesson in humility from the poor...', Gulf Daily News, March 19, 2010, Jennifer Gnana | 
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