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Giving Money to Strangers
The first time it happened to me was about 15 years ago. I had just moved to Bangalore for my first job after finishing my final year at university. The firm was headquartered in the Silicon Valley and my manager was in the US, which meant I often worked strange hours. On that day it must have been close to midnight when I stepped out after a late meeting. The air had turned cool and I had forgotten my jacket inside. I remember debating whether I should head back in to get it, and perhaps that’s why I didn’t notice them until they were only a few feet away.
They were a family of three — a man, his wife and a son who couldn’t have been older than five. Definitely from one of the villages up in the north, judging by the way they dressed and spoke. India is a potpourri of different cultures and languages but the man’s turban, his thin cotton kurta, and the way woman wore her saree were dead giveaways. They were at least two thousand kilometres away from home.
The man did all the talking. Did I speak Hindi, the language commonly spoken in north India, he asked. When I nodded, a relieved smile flashed briefly across his face. He explained that he and his family had come down to the south on a pilgrimage and were on the way back to their village. They were going to board the Rajdhani Express train to Delhi, a thirty hour long journey, but someone had stolen all their belongings…
