The Less Fortunate

Wish to express my gratitude to Ustaz Cahaya who has highlighted on the issue of Slumdog Millionaire Kids (Reader's Digest Oct 2009).

Every time my heart sank when the issue of the less fortunate been raised. I still remembered, I was six years old then, my father would put a 10 cent coin in my palm and made me handed over to a beggar if we happened to spot one whether at the clinic or roadside. Sometimes the beggars were blind, amputated and some would had two to three kids surrounding them. It was the first soul lesson I learnt.

I tried to instill the same value to my kids similar to what my father's practiced. I guessed we tend to follow suit what our parents had passed to us especially the ones involve values in raising our kids...

Noticed one common thing when I requested the kids to pass over the money to the beggars. Maybe the physical appearance of the beggars scared them off. I had to reassure them that there was nothing to be scared of as they were also humans like us.

However, I would be selective to whom I would give the money as nowadays most cases were not genuine. Some parties took advantage and made their official professions and some were plotted by syndicates.

I really could not tolerate with the syndicate that took advantage of kids to fulfill their missions. Recently, I sympathised with a baby (I guessed about 2 or 3 months old) been carried around by a foreign lady to beg at the nearby Pasar Tani. I was really put out off and dared not look into those innocent eyes...

"That baby doesn't look the mother la..." my eldest daughter scoffed off. Even, the young ones noticed...

At first, I felt like snatching off the baby and surrendered to the police but scared of the agent/syndicate which might hiding somewhere, second was to report the matter to the police and third should I give the money...

I did not proceed with option 2 as I knew the syndicate would flee off once they smelled the police and option no 3 was against my principle. I would give the money for the sake of the baby but at the end of the day, the money would still go to the syndicate's pockets. I felt so helpless...

That night I had a hard time to sleep thinking of the baby... Well, actually the existence of slumdog millionaire kids are worldwide issues since there are opportunist and greedy people willing to take advantages of the kids for their own well beings...