My daily walks take me through the walking paths along one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The morning stroll usually is uneventful but satisfying and creates a good platform to meet various people who are also keen in walking jogging or exercising.
A woman shabbily dressed in threadbare rags raised her hand towards me in a gesture of pleading some money. The fact that she refrained from uttering the usual jibberish but instead looked at me with tears in her eyes tightened the muscles in my usually unforgiving and stone cold heart.
" I don't carry money on my daily walks… Can I offer you some good clothing"
Without breaking my own principles of not giving money to beggars, I thought I could offer her some old clothes which were already waiting in the boot of my car for distribution amongst the poor in Sri Lanka. My memory raced back to the days I spent in London with my daughter a few months back.
Sometimes, my daughter collects a huge bundle of old clothes and puts them outside her house in a special bag provided by a charity organisation. They come and collect the bags to be sold at thrift shops and the money goes to charity. British folks take pride in buying them and wearing these used clothes with a strong belief that they have participated in a good deed of charity.
I decided to collect used clothes in UK and send them to Sri Lanka. As a start I called one of my good old friends, a retired Sri Lankan doctor living in UK. When I posed my idea to him he and his wife (a world famous actress of the silver screen in Sri Lanka) volunteered to give all their good clothes to be shipped to Sri Lanka and I volunteered to distribute amongst the needy.
I received this parcel a few days back and the whole package was still there inside my jeep waiting to be distributed. Rummaging through the lot, I found an almost new tee shirt that I thought would fit her. Her face lit when I gave it to her and I went away to complete my daily task of 6000 steps without the slightest notion that I would later on repent doing this good deed.
The next day I was doing my daily 6000 steps when I noticed an unusual gathering by the side of the walking path opposite a dilapidated building which probably would have been the result of 2004 tsunami. My curiosity took me through the crowd and saw a woman hanging with a rope around her neck. She had the tee shirt I gave the previous day. Tears started rolling down my cheeks with a feeling of immense guilt that I could have saved her had I bought some food and given her some money.
She probably killed herself through hunger or with problems that loomed over her head. The hand that she raised probably was asking for help and not money. The feeling of guilt that I could not help will never fade in my conscience.
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