Homeless People in India Vs. America

I was thinking of a situation I ran into last summer when I was in India.  I was about to enter a cinema in my hometown of Jammu with my family to watch an Indian movie.  Now watching a Bollywood movie is an experience in its own right, but watching in India heightens the experience to another level, and is a blog topic in its own right for later.  Before my family entered the theater, we were approached by two groups of beggars.  One yielded a large elephant controlled by ropes so you wouldn’t get crushed, asking for change in exchange for a ride.  The other beggar was a woman with a basket holding a small snake threatening to put a curse on you if you didn’t give her some money.  Call it what you will, but this is far more gangster than any homeless person in the US that I’ve run into.  I even think by calling our country’s penniless “homeless” softens them up a bit.  I’ve also never been approached by a guy on the side of the freeway threatening me with a black curse and an earthworm in his right hand.  But at the same time, the wild animals in India that are at the beggars’ discretion are much more “wild.”  So to all the homeless folks in the US checking this blog (see picture below)…steal something from a zoo, and step your game up

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