Poor and Dishonest?

I went to her to get my slippers mend. She was a cobbler sitting on the road side of a location on the outskirts of Hyderabad. I guessed the price for the job would be Rs 10, or maximum 15. I haven’t seen much variation in cobbler’s charges across India. It was Mumbai first where I saw lady-cobblers; otherwise the job belongs to men in much of North India. I thought the job was slightly less demanding especially when you have a reserved small shop on the foot-path, and hence the trend would be for men to have more demanding jobs and women to occupy their place – at least in the cities. Anyways, she was doing her job and something was going on in my mind. Those days I was trying to find means to do something for the poor. I wondered if I should offer her a hundred rupee note. What if she used it to buy alcohol for herself? Should I ask her if she had young children in school and then help her with something specifically for them? My chain of thoughts got a break when I heard, “Rs 25”. What? “Rupee 25 is too much. Take Rs 10; it should be fair.”

To my surprise, she protested strongly. She started explaining about the job done which I showed to her was not much. Still, I gave her Rs 20. She said she won’t leave the remaining Rs 5. Then she commented something interesting, “You people come from UP (Uttar Pradesh) to Hyderabad and want to dictate me what should be the charge?” So it was about exploiting the “outsiders”? I got angry and asked her why she was bringing “UP” in between? If she asked Rs 100 for the job, should I give it to her only because I came from outside Hyderabad? She took a backseat hearing this. By the time two other ladies had also come to the shop and they became uncomfortable, perhaps thinking if they would also be charged exorbitantly. Anyways, I left her place after saying that I won’t give more than 20 and she could do whatever she wanted. Moments before leaving, I gave her a last glance and bewildered because I saw a “fun” in her eyes. May be such demands and encounters were “regular” for her.

Should I have given in to her demand? After all, Rs 5 or Rs 25 was not a big sum! I know that most of the street vendors are poor, but am I wrong if I expect a bit of integrity from them? And her comments on “you having come from UP” definitely gave the indication that she was treating me discriminately! Also, if people like me start giving her double the usual price, won’t she start demanding the same high price from the really poor customers too? That would be really bad. Anyways, I don’t know what I learnt from the experience, because such things happen many times in all places in this world. But one thing for sure: it broke my “charity bubble”.

- Rahul