Author: Pooja Naik
Publication: Mumbai Mirror
Date: August 21, 2011
URL: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/2011082120110821020912947ff48dce7/Labourer-donates-half-his-wages-to-Hazare.html
At first sight, he seemed the least likely
of people who could donate, but Karan Singh, a 20-something casual labourer
who lives on the pavement at Hutatma Chowk donated half his day's wages to
Anna Hazare's cause.
Singh had just made Rs 100 after about five
hours of work clearing debris at an under-renovation site.
When volunteer Dhaval Mehta, who was approaching
passers-by for donation, casually asked Singh to chip in, he was at first,
a tad dazed.
Singh said he knew nothing of "Anna
bhaisahab". A quick lesson on Anna and his cause, and the youth who was
clad in a tattered blue shirt, reached for his pocket.
"I have just made Rs 100, take Rs 50,"
Singh, who came to the city from Agra five years ago, said in chaste Hindi.
When Mehta realised his impoverished condition,
he gently dissuaded Singh from donating.
"Nahin," he said, narrating about
his tryst with corrupt policemen who take away street dwellers like him to
the Chembur beggars' home, and how he has to "grease their palms to be
set free".
As Singh slipped away after giving his mite,
other well-off people too contributed - some dropped in a tenner, others Rs
20.
