Shuffling through trash thrown carelessly on the streets of my hometown, I noticed an old man sitting on the dusty, broken sidewalk. His grey eyes showed grief while his beard and hair were tousled and grimy in the humid weather. He looked at me with quivering lips and a face creased like vellum.

In a faltering voice he said, “Help the poor, May God bless you with more.”

As I stared into the space sitting in my car, it halted abruptly and I heard muffled voices through the window. I saw children in torn clothes selling colouring books and small balloons at the traffic signal. I also saw hunger and thirst in their eyes as they begged for small change.

I realised with a heavy heart that these kids are supposed to be in school with books in their hands rather than goods to be sold.

A child pre­ssed his palm against my window and said, “Help the poor, May God bless you with more.”

Looking at the fingerprints imprinted on the glass of my window, I come out of my daze when I see a vendor who was selling flour dumplings, suddenly slip on a cracked pavement. The whole stall came crashing down along with containers of food.

I watched the grief-stricken man with silent tears rolling down his cheeks and thought about his children who would sleep hungry tonight.

Hurrying over to him, I hand him a few thousand rupees and he looks at me as though I’m an angel on earth and whispers, “You helped the poor, May God bless you with more.”

It was a scorching day and as I wiped the sweat from across my shiny forehead, I found myself in the slums of Karachi. It’s certainly not a pretty sight with uncemented, brick houses among mountains of trash.

I saw kids playing soccer with a football made out of recycled aluminium foil and crushed soft drink cans. Mud-crusted faces, tattered clothes and swollen heels because they couldn’t afford to buy slippers. There was something weird about the place as the children had a glimmer in their eyes and pure joy on their faces as they ran around with their makeshift ball. I looked around and saw that an elderly woman was bringing home what she thought was useful in a bag full of trash.

She looked at me and smiled. Walking over to her I asked her if I could help her and the community in any way.

She looked at me and said, “There’s one thing that every poor citizen in Pakistan does not need, it is sympathy. I know you’re here to help us, my child, and I know that there are a lot of people who want to help us but if you pity us, think we’re not grateful and living in a heap of trash, then you do not understand us correctly.

“The kids playing soccer are glad to have something to eat at least once a day hence, they’re happy and grateful. If you meet any beggars, they would give you blessings because giving blessings does not cost us anything.

“As for you helping us, it means the world to us.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 23rd, 2019