The rest of the day I sort of drifted along, thinking of the boy whenever my attention wasn’t being drawn to something else, and wondering what I could do, but frankly not being able to think of a single thing beyond what I had done by giving him the one thing I did have, and that was money.
…

After lunch we were picked up again and taken on a tour of local craft shops. Actually, it’s all designed to coax you to buy stuff from the various merchants, which I generally resisted with one or two exceptions. Throughout it all, every time I had a quiet moment, my mind went back to the little beggar boy, and each time I would feel a renewed sense of helplessness.
…

The last activity of the day was a drive out to the “Abandoned City of… (something or other)”. Again, it was sort of a fort thing, and interesting enough as forts go, but then, not a whole lot different than other forts. Again, we had all the briefings on why this was so interesting, which was just as well, since I don’t think I could have figured it out on my own.

Again, we were surrounded by beggars; in this case mostly children.  I handed out my rupees which caused even more to appear. Ultimately there must have been about 25, and some army type individual must have thought they were bothering me since he came running over with a long heavy stick to whack some of them and they all scattered. There was one little beggar girl that especially caught my eye. She was trying to coax me to take her picture then pay her for the privilege. I had given her 10 rupees and she followed along behind me smiling broadly at me whenever I caught her eye and smiled at her. She was filthy dirty from top to bottom and covered in dust, but seemed very bright and was very active as she ran back and forth from where she had been tending a water jug and cup. All in all she seemed quite healthy and I thought she must have a remarkable constitution to remain so healthy and alert in such circumstances.

She, and the other beggar children were apparently not allowed inside the fort since they didn’t follow when we entered, but there was another group of beggar children inside when we arrived. I gave one little boy 10 rupees where upon he apparently adopted me as his patron, and kept trying to shoo the other children away when they approached.

The other mishap board members said they didn’t think it was a good idea to be giving the money to the beggar children but I told them what King Benjamin said and they didn’t really have a comeback. One of them thought about what I said and told me later he thought I was right and that he wished he had brought more bank notes with him. Actually, I was getting a little concerned that I was going to run out of rupees before I ran out of little beggars, but so far I was holding out.

When we came out of the fort all the kids were waiting for us patiently as was the little girl (who looked about 10 or so). I gave her another 10 rupees and gave most of the other kids something too and then made my way to the car. I was the first one back to the car, and once inside the adult street vendors came and knocked on the windows with trinkets to sell. They were all things that you would never use, but I didn’t want to turn them away. This was a dilemma. I didn’t know whether to just offer them some money as a gift, since I thought it might offend them. On the other hand, I didn’t want to pay 100 rupees for something not worth 10 rupees. Ultimately, I tried to just give them each 10 rupees, and I thought one of them looked like I had hurt his feelings. I tried to explain that I really couldn’t use anything they had to offer but that I wanted to give them something, but some of them could barely understand English, so I ultimately gave up, and tried to just chat with the chauffeur while we waited for the others to come back to the car. Of course, the trinket salesmen kept knocking on the car windows and pointing at all their wares, and I kept smiling back and nodding approval, being careful not to make eye contact since it seemed to encourage them even more. I had given them what I could and as I mentioned I was getting low on rupees and I knew I still had to go back through the train station to get back to New Delhi and would need some rupees for that.

As I mentioned, the chauffeur seemed to be between 19 and 20 years of age. I asked him if he enjoyed driving and he said no, that the owners of the tourist guide company abused him and he was hoping to be able to do something else one day. I asked him where he lived and he said nowhere. He said he slept in the car when it wasn’t being used at night and the rest of the time he found a spot to sleep wherever he could. He said everything he had in the world he was either wearing or had with him. Not much of a life I thought, but actually better than the majority of those I saw.
…

This was the close of the day’s activities and we set off for the train station and the trip home. It took about 40 minutes to get back to the train station and as we drove along I reflected on the little beggar boy with the swollen feet for the hundredth time. I couldn’t think of anything I could have really done but I wished there had been.

Entering the train station was the reverse process of exiting it. A giant mass of humanity and crowds of people outside. We gave a tip to the guide and driver then entered the station and found the right platform where we stood waiting for the train to arrive. We were about 15 minutes early for the train and I was just standing thinking about the day’s experiences when I turned and who was standing there but the little boy with the swollen feet. I smiled at him and he smiled at me and I went over and gave him another 50 rupees and tried to talk to him. He could only speak a few words of English. I was delighted to see him and he was a little shy and when I bent over to talk to him he looked off to the side as if he were looking at something behind me in a shy sort of way. I asked him how old he was and he answered, ten. I asked him if his feet hurt and he said uh huh, however he said uh huh to everything I said and I could tell he only understood a little English. Now there was only about 10 minutes until the train was due in and I didn’t have a plan to help him since I didn’t really expect to see him again. I asked him if his mother was there to which he replied “mother”. There was a beggar lady there watching every move I made with him and smiling at us both. I asked if she was his mother and she smiled and said no, and I gave her 10 rupees. I thought if I could find some responsible person we could organize some help for this little boy.