GOOD CHARITY

Good charity dressed in devils clothing.

During my everyday walk along the walkway bordering Galle beach, I met this shabbily dressed character with an unkempt beard. He behaved either drunk or just out of a lunatic asylum. Since it was too early to be drunk, I assumed him to be a guy out of an asylum. However, his vibrant behaviour and broad sarcastic smile stopped me on my tracks when he approached me.

“ Sir, can I have two rupees please” he asked in an extremely obliging tone with respect, taking my thoughts in a flash towards the era when Sri Lankan families managed to live on Rs. 2500 a month, thanks to the bulldog face who dominated the Finance Ministry.

“ What the hell can you do with 2 rupees”  I asked gathering enough courage and ignoring the famous advise that, one should not fool around with lunatics. I pondered if he had come out of the infamous asylum of Bandula at his ministry.

“ OK Sir give me 20 rupees” he retorted. Now he is trying to be smarter than Thondaman who during the sixties and seventies demanded the sun when he really wanted the moon and went away with the moon leaving the government to brag about the victory over an opportunist, who always took the government to task with his minority votes.

Forgetting the basics of successful negotiation strategies, I said “ you still cannot even drink a cup of tea with 20”

“ OK Sir, give me 50”. Now I realised that I have been sucked into the pit by this seemingly uneducated lunatic but, decided not to accept defeat taking the ludicrous courage of the pachawansa and gembanpila type.

“ I will give you money but first, tell me what are you going to do with this money”  I thought I had cornered this guy at last for he cannot come out with the usual bullshit stories of Sri Lankan beggars. I was expecting a reply like, to purchase medicine for him or his ailing mother.

Instead with a serious expression on his face he blasted out knocking me off balance  “ to have a shot of kasippu “ which is the poor man's liquor in Sri Lanka. Great, now I have reasonable grounds to ask him to piss off  I thought, realising that he is already drunk and not a lunatic.

“ No money for liquor” I said triumphantly and started to walk away when he muttered, “ Sir, what did you think I would do with 50 rupees, go to the parliament?”

I retraced my steps and gave him a hundred.

Driving back home I said to myself that was good charity. He needed a drink more than a Buddhist monk needs a meal. Tomorrow I will take a sarong and a shirt to give him.