At the traffic lights around MG Road, its quite common to see little girls from the northern parts of the country begging. A rather large party of north indians migrated to the city a while back and when they found nothing else to feed themselves they quickly turned to begging. They may have been farmers in their villages but not anymore. Some still try to get by on the government emplyment scheme selling face masks, newspapers and things like that. Most have taken to the streets and beg for a living. Its a common sight to see most of the men missing an arm or a leg. This happened over a period of time and considering that begging is controlled completely by local goons it seemed like a calculated pattern of dismemberment. Now though, its the little girls. Two of them at two different traffic lights have burns on their arms. Both of them on their forearms and both of them on the left arm. Maybe the men with missing arms or legs weren't bringing in enough dough. Maybe I'm just being morbid and paranoid. Or maybe someone's out there burning the arms of little girls in the hope of making more money.
A third little girl with a burn on her arm will establish a pattern. The girls run away when I ask them the hows of the burns or get a confused look on their little faces and say they fell down.
I don't know what the point to this is, but begging in this city is organised and run by a few people. Again and again, it is the children, the innocents, with no one to stand up for them who pay. Right now, these children are paying with blood. I don't know how anyone can end this or even if there is anything that can help, but ideas would be welcome.
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