Thursday 18 June 2015

Street Actor.. The Journey of a beggar from Shikarpur to Karachi

Street Actors (Beggars) have existed in human culture following before the beginning of written history. Asking has happened in many social orders the world over, however its predominance and accurate structure shift.

Numerous religions have endorsed asking as the main satisfactory method for backing for specific classes of followers, including Christianity, Hinduism, Sufi Islam, , and Buddhism, normally to give a route to specific disciples to concentrate solely on otherworldly advancement without the likelihood of getting to be gotten up to speed in common undertakings.

If we start to classify beggars, religious beggars got the most benefit because of their appearance and fake association with Sufism. 

On the busy streets of I.I Chundrigar road there is a food street known as Begum Gali, which is the center of attraction for all food lovers, it provide variety of food on different prices. I was sitting at a Burger corner with my friend for lunch, when a mysterious person grab our attention by asking for money, He was wearing green dress and green cap, he had a picture on his chest displaying Shrine of Lal Shehbaz Qalandar, His name was Ghulam Qadir and he was claiming himself as the follower of him migrated from Shikarpur to Karachi making the Tomb of Abdullah Shah Ghazi as his home.



I thought he was hungry and begging to get some food to feed himself and his family, so I offered him food, "I don't want to eat, I am full and I just need money" he said, I asked him, "Are you drug addict and begging money for drugs?" but he didn't accept that and kept asking for money, I advice him to sit with us, so he quietly settled down. we started to ask him random questions about his life and family, "My family is living in Shikarpur, I have 5 sons and three daughters, one of my son and daughter are married and rest of the children are school going and are studying in different standards" said in low voice.

He was acting like that his is about to get unconscious due to low blood pressure, so he asked me to offer him a soft drink, I called the shopkeeper and advice to bring a drink for him, he was about to left but Ghulam Qadir instructed him to get Coke for him, the way he said shows that he is brand conscious and never prefer to drink other than Coke. 

He came to Karachi from Shikarpur only to feed his family through begging, He knows that this is the best occupation which has enough profit that can give his family a good livelihood, he use to visit his home once a year and rest of the time he beg at different streets of Karachi and at night he came back to the Tomb of Abdullah Shah Ghazi and sleeps over there. 

On asking about his religious knowledge he was unable to recite 1st Kalma, even he don't know how to offer prayer. When I kept on asking different questions he started acting like he is getting heart attack and make weird faces and making the way to escape, so we left that person.




When he left, A thought came into my mind that how these people take religion as a business and occupation and make people fool by simply adopting the getup of Sufi's and wear different costumes which shows spirituality in eyes of our society.

Society needs to change, We should condemn these people and never give them money because they don't deserve this, they are professionals and take this as an occupation.

I was thinking that I am doing a job to feed my family, I offer my services to an organization which in returns gave me salary which fulfill my needs, but this person has no worries he is just enjoying his life roaming from one place to another and keep on begging from people and sending money to his home, may be his family think that he is not a beggar and working in Karachi, may be on his way back to Shikarpur he wear good dress to show that he is doing a respectful job in the city and make his family and all the district fool.





No comments:

Post a Comment