Acharya Prashant: We have heard of the beggar, who used to sit at the main crossing in the city. He had been begging since many years, rather decades. He had been begging since so long that it could be said that he had been begging all his life. People had grown so used to his begging face, his begging voice, that whenever they would think of a beggar, this person’s face, voice, actions would come to their mind. One could say that this fellow was begging personified. Having begged for so long, he had internalised begging so much that even when he was not asking for favours, there was the beggar still present in his eyes, in his walk, in his voice, in his total presence.
He had become an institution in himself, so much so that the new beggars, or the young beggars who would come to the city, would actually come to watch him. Just looking at him, even if he was asleep, even if he was just having his meals, just looking at him was sufficient to give a clear picture of what begging is.
Even if he would be joking, it was so obvious that he was still begging, that it was still the beggar at work. One could have safely removed the word ‘beggar’ from the dictionary and instead substituted it with his name. The only difficulty in this was that nobody knew his name anymore, he was only known as, “The beggar”.
Having begged for five decades, seven decades, he died. His presence had become a feature of that crossing, in fact, a part of the city itself, people had grown accustomed to seeing him, or hearing his voice, whenever they would reach that crossing.
For many, it had become a part of daily routine to give him a coin or two. So when he departed, it almost felt as if a part of the city or a part of the population had departed.
