I cringe when I see the decrepit face of a poor and desolate yet I go blank when I decide to help them. Even if I help them financially I can never cure their gloomy emotional state of mind, the sadness, the woes they try to hide behind their faces yet an expression of agony is written all over their face. Their ragged, coarse and wrinkled face is enough to prove their misery. Their skin is tightly woven on their face bones which clearly indicate starvation. We are so busy in our daily chores that we fail to realize our duty- to help humanity. Indeed the feeling of happiness to make a poor smile is insurmountable.
Right in front of me, I see not a human but skeletal wearing ragged clothes. I wonder how many times she might have had no meals. How many times she might have been shoved aside by the imprudent and self centered? How many times she may have been rejected? Cursed for been lazy and sly. Yet not being in a position to argue, to fight back, she meekly raises her scraped palm in an attitude of prayer.
The wise say that we should not judge a person by his appearances yet when we look at a beggar, without second thoughts we remark:
“Why doesn’t she ever work to earn bread than beg? Surely begging would do her no good.”
Yet, we are completely oblivious of her emotional instability; the woes that breed within her. In her bosom, all she nurses is losses, agony and everyday she waters her fears of starving her family; the quivering dread of losing her family haunts her; with all this she lacks the strength and the vigor to work; in the end she finds herself completely helpless. With such emotional and physical instability, how can we expect her to work? She is left with no strength and wears a gloomy expression and her only reason to breath is to feed her children. One can see the evidence of her convulsive sobbing in her eyes.
For that hopeless soul, life is struggle, pain, eternal gloom, disappointment and misfortunate all piled up in front her.
In these desperate times, when one has no control of the situation, all a person needs more than financial support is love and kindness. Kind words and condolences can do what wealth cannot. We are not aware of the mishaps these poor people have to go through, but we are certainly aware of the human feelings because a human can best interpret the feelings of her own kind.
Thus, we should help the desolate and show them that humanity is still alive. Even a pat on a poor can generate a smile on their face which is priceless. Instead of brushing them off we should bring them near us in every possible manner. Just as we can think of 101 excuses to miss school, likewise we have the capability to help them in more than 101 ways, all that is required is our wholehearted will.