I Was 14 When a Poor Kid Taught Me Something My Parents Never Did
Talking to a 10-year-old poor kid at a holy city in India
I’m an extremely empathetic person. The downside to it is that I begin to grieve for anything unfortunate that I see. Stray animals, elderly people, the poor — my heart breaks for it all. And when I realize there’s less in my control, it breaks a little more.
Here in India, family outings often mean visiting temples. And since Indians are religious, holy cities flooded with tourists are a common sight.
We were one of those families too and I hated that. I hated crowded places and people’s mad belief in gods. Sadly, I was only 14 and had no liberty to refuse to go.
The saddest thing about such places is that it’s full of poor people. They choose to stay there in hopes of making more money by begging from the crowds.
One of our holidays was in a holy city called Shirdi, in West India. As religious places tend to make me, I was bored as hell and least interested in checking out temples.
One fine evening of our stay, my parents asked me to get takeaway from a restaurant in front of our hotel. My dad handed me some cash (about the exact amount that I would need for the food). He also reminded me to get the disposable…
