I Feel Guilty.....

Have you been assailed by this continuous feeling of guilt? I have.

I look at the beggars on the street, kids specially, and I feel guilty I can’t do anything for them. At one point of time, I had decided that I am not going to give them money, if they beg me for it, but more often than not, the guilt factor takes over, and I hand over a rupee or two to them. You know it’s funny. I feel compassion for what they must be going through, but I feel anger, if they touch me. I wonder. This is hypocrisy right.

I really do not understand this disgusted reaction to a beggar kid touching your person. He or she is actually just touching your shirt or pant, but most of us react in a horrible manner. I have seen some people hit out at these small kids. Till date I haven’t, but who knows. You know what…. I think most people offer beggars, kids or otherwise, money, because they feel guilty. They feel embarrassed looking at all the poverty around them, and think that they can get away with putting a 1 rupee coin in the hands of these kids. Yours truly included.

I know what the arguments against this frame of thought are. If you give these kids money, you are actually giving them an incentive for begging and so on and so forth. But c’mon can’t we spare a rupee? Ok, another thing. What can I do? Join a social service organization to help the destitute? This is when, the cynic in me, comes forth. Will I be able to make a difference? I know, the answer here is, I will. But, my mind starts procrastinating and creating reasons for not contributing my time and effort to really do something worthwhile. Believe me people; cynicism has an answer for everything. Its quite rich actually, I begin to picture myself in a scenario, wherein, I do join some organization, which helps these kids to turn their life around. But, won’t I feel frustrated and irritated if I find that I am not able to make a quantifiable difference. Yes, hilarious isn’t it? Here, I haven’t done anything, and I am already looking for ways to back out, in case I do something! Explain that one to me.

In the end, I think it’s this overall cynicism that breeds guilt. I really don’t know whether I am making any sense or not, but I might not feel as guilty, if I do something constructive. But then again, I really don’t want to do it, because I don’t think it will be worth my time and effort. It’s all a cycle. Here’s something else. I don’t want to go and help these kids, because I feel guilty. I want to do it, with an empathetic heart. Is that possible, here again is the problem. Till that time, I will keep giving them a rupee or two, that’s infinitely easier. I have learnt to live with my guilt.

Now if you have even deemed it fit to read so far, here is another one. Traffic rules! I can say with pride that I have never broken a traffic rule in my life. Hmm alright, maybe a few times. But that’s about it. Now do you people know those white lines that we come across, near a traffic signal. I think they are called zebra crossing, but anyways, according to the traffic rule book, you need to halt your vehicle, before these lines. Yes, it might come as a shock to you, but you need to. However, who does that? Not in Baroda they don’t. And here’s the thing people….. even the police have given up. They don’t care anymore. A long time back somebody had told me about this rule. However, I really didn’t give it too much importance, but whenever I stopped my vehicle on the white lines I felt guilty. I knew I was breaking a rule. But, I didn’t want to go back, for fear of getting angry glares from people around me. Well, here’s what I did. One fine day I decided, I am going to stick to that rule. Others be damned. Now the problem, is with the kind of haphazard traffic around me, it gets really very difficult for me to adhere to the rule. God Knows, I have tried enough. So, it’s iffy at best. I might be able to stand before the zebra lines, but might just be forced to stand on it. This is when I start to feel guilty. What I really want to do is, swear at the people forcing me to break the rule and tell them what the rules are. I want to rant and shout and prove my point. I remember a day, when I had done that. No, I didn’t shout or rant or get angry or anything, I politely told somebody who was honking away to glory, that I could not go any further, because it was against the rules. But, I never did again, I guess, I grew tired of it after the first time. I think it’s better to feel guilty, rather than having an argument that is futile at best. You can change yourself, but you can’t even hope to change the people around you. After all, what is the traffic policeman there for? It’s his job not mine.

Anyways, I better end my guilt ridden trip here; there are many more things that I feel guilty about, but I am sure you people would not relish the parts of a confessor. So I end here, to begin another guilt trip, some other time.