[Reader-list] Begging on the streets of London.

Sun Feb 5 18:34:21 IST 2006

hi.

When i wrote the earlier mail i was just letting out
some steam.but Angharad's and the other response have
prompted further thought.
Enterprise is one peculiar thing about begging! As
Anghrad mentions how the Buskers(thanks for
reminding.)are a perfect location for what the
Advertising Agencies calls 'tactical/surrogate
advertising.

In Delhi too the enterprise gets attached to the
people who perform on the roads(not always in a
positive sense of the word).Selling books and daily
newspapers is the most common among them.

the other day my auto stopped at Green Park crossing.A
little boy walked up to me. His eyes...those of a
drunk.He looked very disoriented (may have been on one
of the fumic dopes)..while i was still observing whats
gone wrong with him..he falshed four books...then
mumbled out a few familiear names.."Da
vinci..robin"(Robin Sharma's book :the monk who sold
his ferrari, it seems sells only on the
footpaths).."sidney" he continued. 
Finally he concluding with some best seller.

Amidst the thick stuffy traffic...a strange conscious
guy was giving me a Best seller listing. I politely
turned my face away...pursing my lips and nodding a
sorry denial...but he poked with one of his books on
my shoulder.He said he was hungry so he needs the
money..Next his buddy pops up..carrying some raunchy +
Business magzines.In the next few seconds both of them
ran through the list of books once again+ said they
want money+ said that i wd get a 50 percent
discount..and finally ...surrendered their cries to a
big loud laughter....and Bhag ja(get lost).Laughing
wildly.

Ok so is this alternate book culture?Psychotic
marketing? or what? 

My point:

Begging as enterprise is not on the periphery but is
connected to distribution and marketing sectors of
other enterprises!But till date the Govt. and
'authorities' have chosen to look at it with ruthless
disgust...and from a peculiar lens ..that of
'Hygiene'.

how pathetic.

A.

--- Angharad Closs <angharadcloss at hotmail.com> wrote:

---------------------------------

In response to Assim's poetic piece, and as a London
resident, the word you're looking for is buskers
(street musicians). I wouldn't say they qualify as
beggars.

Following new rules by London Mayor Ken Livingstone,
the buskers on the London underground now have to pass
an audition to be allowed to play a two hour slot on a
particular spot. By governmentalising the system, the
quality of music has needless to say detriorated. I
used to come across some fantastic improvisers,
playing some very inventive 'instruments'. Now they
tend to be confined to re-runs of Norah Jones.

The latest interesting twist however, is that the
music and film industry has caught on the value of
buskers as a facility for product placement. They are
now paying buskers directly to play the music that
will remind people of a particular album/film they
want to buy/go see. So, when the new film about Johnny
Cash comes out in London soon, apparently we will
likely hear buskers on the underground playing his
music. You can't say that these people are not
smart...

In the meantime, there's still great stuff to be heard
under Blackfriars bridge.

---------------------------------

From:  aasim khan <aasim27 at yahoo.co.in>
To:  mahmood farooqui
<mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com>,Vichaarak t
<vichaarak at gmail.com>
CC:  reader-list at sarai.net
Subject:  [Reader-list] Begging on the streets of
London.
Date:  Fri, 3 Feb 2006 09:44:41 +0000 (GMT)
to add to mahmood's point.what's begging in the first
place?...so if we are talking strictly about begging
we need to know what qualifies.or is it that a
stranger takes money from you ..he/she is a begger.And
the case of fakirs....here i site another instance.

I travelled for the first time to the West last
year....and one of the first things i noticed was that
even they had their Beggars.I was walking to the
underground in London and on one corner sat a man
(dressed in cargos and jackets..and was by all
standards ok healthwise)... under his scrubby face
hung a big note....HOMELESS AND HUNGRY.he was silent
and still!also was not trying to capture my
attention...no performance.but among all those fast
paced men and women in their GAP jeans he stood
out(though he sqautted).Everyone was going
somewhere...he wasn't.

Then the other lot was the musical lot...They were
called something...cant remeber but they were
definitely not beggars! they played good music...Esp
under the blackfriars bridge..my friend was moved to
tears...by those singers who just kept a bowl a yard
in front of their Amp. and would shake their head in a
nonchalant acknowledgement if u droppped a few pennies
in it.some race factor surely existed..becoz i saw a
lot of dark skinned people..but then they are also
better singers.so one never knows...
My hosts were obviously kindhearted and always had
spare pennies..but this Pathos that Mahmood invokes
...that was so understated esp. for me ,the resident
of the RUDEST place in the world that i almost
thought...can i call this begging?

it is something... i say that..blurrs the line between
hopeless and hopeful!

--- mahmood farooqui <mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Vicharak,
>
> Allow me to say this that our utmost confidence and
> familiarity about
> begging and beggars springs, eventually, from our
> abysmal ignorance of
> it.
>
> I have been looking, for years, for a single book on
> beggars, a single
> documentary, a single article...
>
> Is there anyway of going beyond the duality of
> helpless
> victims/terrorised gang members?
>
> For starters, in begging, location is the first, the
> second and the
> third most important criterion-so what are the hafta
> rates for the
> Ashram crossing? WHo all charge that hafta?
>
> Obviously, beggars at shrines, dargahs, mandirs etc
> are among the
> elite category of beggars-so how does one arrive
> there? Who assures
> one's space, what is the system of graft, bribe,
> cutback etc in these
> places?
>
> Who then are the gang operators? Where do these
> members go at night?
> Do people travel to beg?
>
> It won't do to counterpose begging to work for
> beggary is hard work
> and does not come easy. It takes great dedication
> and committment to
> run after cars, scooters, apathetic passengers of a
> bus etc. So what
> drives those kids and those oldies-not starvation in
> many cases...
>
> Begging is also performance art of a kind-when you
> see a prospective
> donor hesitate what is the Rasa that you should
> strike-karuna,
> veebhatsa SHould you frighten the bugger about his
> privilege status or
> should you invoke his mercy? Obviously every beggar
> is beseeching the
> donor/customer, so what peculiarity can you bring to
> it-you have to
> switch on the performance when you approach the
> car/auto, then swtich
> off and then switch on again for the next one. But
> what do you do when
> the light is green?
>
> After experimental Urdu afsana of the 60s kind I
> have never read about
> beggars. It is quite astonishing, isn't it that the
> phenomenon, like
> roadside shitting, is so pervasive in our society
> that, pace Naipaul,
> we can be wholly oblivious to it.
>
> Urban designers, cyber-mohallas, installation
> artists(of which beggars
> are the primary founders), body specialists,
> anthropologists,
> radicals, subalterns, thinkers, desis, videsis-
> where are the voices
> on beggar's buggery?
>
> On 29/01/06, Vichaarak t <vichaarak at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 26/01/06
> > Today in the morning I was returning from my
> office, when I stopped at
> > a red light, I saw a beggar knocking at the window
> of my car asking
> > for 'something'. At the same time she was trying
> to show a glimpse of
> > her malnourished baby, may be to stir up my
> emotional nerves so that I
> > may 'help' her. On the next red light I saw an old
> man doing the same.
> > On these moments many thoughts pass through my
> mind. Will it be
> > justified to pay in kind or cash? Why these people
> have chosen to beg?
> > Who is responsible for their state? If a person is
> physically fit to
> > work why is he or she is not doing any job or they
> don't get it? On
> > what basis to differentiate who is fit to receive
> 'charity' and who is
> > not? What is the responsibility of the state and
> society towards them
> > ? By paying them are we not trying to make to
> continue in the same
> > state or if we don't pay than will they be able to
> survive? Most of
> > the ladies are carrying small babies, are these
> their own babies or
> > available on rent? Are these women married then
> what there husbands
> > are doing? Do they have a notion of a family as a
> unit. How they find
> > a match for marriage? How their kinship network
> operates? Is paying to
> > 'them' a charity on 'our' part?
> >
> > 29/01/06
> > On the other day I received a letter from UNICEF
> saying that it will
> > take just a stroke of pen to save a life. I
> wondered whether this is
> > not another form of begging. If I can pay to
> UNICEF then why not to
> > the road side beggar? Or is it that in this
> 'sector'' of begging there
> > is a division of privileged and unprivileged or
> organized and
> > unorganized.
> > _________________________________________
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> _________________________________________
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