Being blind to the blind?

I am guilty! First of shamelessly copying a line from a campaign by O&M. Well guess if imitation is flattery this is double flattery because by copying them I am imitating them once more. OK now it is time to stop the bitch fits and get back to the real issue. Which is the second thing I am guilty of.

I have seen them at the Apollo hospital junction where Park Road intersects with Baudhaloka Mawatha which is near the Airtel office. I think I have gone past them every Sunday for more than a year without really taking notice of them till now.

What are they doing? Well from what it seems they are selling tickets and trying to collect funds. But in reality they are begging. I think this a great barometer of the social consciousness of the powers that be. It is the responsibility, no duty of the government to look after its people specially the handicapped and the ailing. Well sadly the care for people expressed by our policymakers are limited to words and not to actions.

In a lighter vein I think this is a very inefficient way to beg. Specially for a Firstly I think it is a shame to our government when blind men have to beg. A government is responsible to look after its people. Especially the handicapped and it is sad that our handicapped have to beg on the street to fend for themselves.

On the other hand I could not help but think that this was a rather inefficient way of begging. Because it is highly unlikely that anyone would get out of their vehicle and come to them and give them money while they are waiting for a red light to turn to green. The maximum stop would not be more than 2 minutes. Even if these guys had someone who could see then they would be able to get them to collect the money on their behalf moving from car to car instead of reaching out from the side of the road. Which was still quite dangerous as I have seen many cars trying to avoid bumping into them. Even if they positioned themselves outside the food city which is a couple of hundred meters away I believe they would do better than being situated at their current location.

Of course this is my warped logic. I believe the laws of economics will finally come into play. They would not be standing in this particular corner for so long if they were not making sufficient money to make ends meet. Or at least their income was up to expectation. Guess they just never heard of profit maximisation.