Brief Encounters: A moment of ethical dilemma

When you are not enclosed in an air-conditioned vehicle, the drill of treading in Delhi’s jammed roads on a sweaty July afternoon takes torture to a whole new level. Sitting in an endlessly stuttering auto-rickshaw, waiting for the signal to go green, I plugged in my earphones and switched to coke studio playlist to drown out the traffic cacophony. Just as Lucky Ali started humming into ‘O Sanam’, someone tapped on my knees.

I stopped the music to see a woman in ragged clothes giving me a pained look. Ditching the usual reflex to ignore beggars at signals, I took off my earphones to hear her out. (Yes, I am cruel enough to ignore them because I am strictly against beggary. And yes, I know this notion is debatable. Anyhow) The woman told me that she worked in a construction site nearby where her co-worker just started having labor pains, and they didn’t have money to take her to the hospital. I looked around and found a pregnant lady walking towards us, wailing in pain. She was like really pregnant. I mean, since she wore a sari, you could actually see that the pregnancy was not an act.

I was taken over by a sudden flashback where my father told me how once at a signal he was duped by a man into lending money for he had lost his wallet and needed to rush to the railway station. A few days later, Papa found the same guy at some other signal, pulling off the same con. Also, I couldn’t help but remember how these mafias are run, the ones who earn out of forcing the poor to beg by torturing them physically. Yet, there was no time to keep thinking when I had a pregnant woman crying in front of me. I knew that even if she was expecting, she might not necessarily be in pain but using her condition to get money. But what if she was not? What if she was genuinely in pain and needed a rescue. I could keep doubting her and live with wondering if it was a smart move not to lend money. Or I could just give in and help her even if there was 0.001% chance. All the other people at the signal managed to look away from her. So many people can’t be wrong. But then, can I live with the image of this woman crying helplessly on the street?

I offered them to share my ride so we can take them to a nearby hospital. But the women declined and said that they just needed the money as the hospital was in the direction opposite to where the traffic was headed. And that was proof enough that it was all a ploy. I can’t believe that a woman on the verge of giving birth to a baby would decline a ready ride for another. Yet, after having decided that I will help, I couldn’t step back. After all, the woman appeared to be crying in pain. Like I said, it was such a situation that even taking a bleak chance would be worth it. So I gave them the money.

As the women walked away, I saw that a biker next to my auto had been watching the whole episode and he looked quite amused. He looked at me through his rear view mirror and gave a you-are-such-a-fool smirk. I mimed a defeated ‘I know’.

He turned to face me.

‘You know that was all a lie right? There is a government hospital nearby. They could have easily walked in’, he said.

I knew about Lady Hardinge Hospital on this route, but it wasn’t close enough for a woman in that condition to walk to. And if there was another hospital closer than that one, I did not want to admit to myself that after having passed this road millions of times in last 25 years, I did not know it well enough.

‘I know’, I lied, partially, ‘But I just could not take a chance’.

Post Slumdog Millionaire and Traffic Signal, I could ignore a blind guy or a limping fellow begging on the street, for the fear that giving money might encourage the beggar mafia. But a woman like that was off limits. You can say that I am selective/biased in my ethics, but then isn’t that true for everyone?

“That’s okay Beta”, said the old auto-rickshaw driver, reading my troubled face. “We are all entitled to our choices, the choices we make to live our lives. If those women chose to con people to earn their living, they will earn it like that, no matter who gets cheated. If you chose to give them the money, so be it. Who is to say what is right and what is not. Leave it to Karma”

He had a point. Karma. I see that pretty much everything we do, everything that happens in our life, zeroes down to this one word. It would be so easy if I could just put everything, all judgments, on Karma and carry on unperturbed.  But then, isn’t it this sense of judgment that motivates our actions?

I cannot help but wonder, how low we, as humans, have stooped to get what we want. For some it is the basic need to survive, for others it is just the lust for more luxury. Either ways, this need tramples all morals, all ethics, and intelligently rationalizes our deeds. So how do you distinguish between right and wrong, ever?