Saturday, November 22, 2003

Jam Sandwiches for the poor & homeless
For me, Gangs of New York ended with the sight of large bag full of food packets in B�s front seat. Matrix style, B welcomed me to the real world. I seemed almost a burden. There was also this huge guilt of having accepted a responsibility we could not carry out. Cat reminded me of our young-blood left-leaning days from Loyola where we learnt first hand that we were no better than Marie Antoinette in our charity. Sometimes people feel insulted to get doles from jeans-clad English-speaking urbane rich-kids. And we were carrying packets of Jam sandwich.
Yet we earnestly sought the homeless; Of course, a group of platform-dwellers on Mount Road are definitely not the poorest of the poor. They accepted the packets unhesitant. The first feeling was an immense relive of having unloaded most of the packets. It was only much later, when we saw this zapped looking man at the Sterling Road signal accepting the food looking both shocked and hungry, that I realised the purpose of this exercise.
We could be just like those who would do charity from air-conditioned motorcars feeling good about having condescended to help; we could be like those politicians calculating goodwill, votes and brownie points in heaven. But whatever we were, this exercise made us take notice of those we would otherwise be happy to ignore, insult or mock. I don�t know if I would go out of my way to do this again. But when opportunity and food packets land in our laps, it is worth contemplating things outside our self-made islands of worries.

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