Outside Chobi Mela VI: One Twin At a Bridge in Dhanmondi

There are two twin brother beggars in Dhaka. They are well known due to the severity of their medical condition. Which I cannot recall, it is a respiratory disease. It is not TB. Both twins are bone thin, literally. A most hard scene to look at. They beg the streets of Dhanmondi, very often near the mosque. It is often a sad site as one sees the first and then shortly after you may find the second.

Begging in Dhaka is a controversial human situation. There are thousands of them, some say perhaps 50,000. Many believe the beggars are purposely mutilated by mafias. Others believe some of them to be even rich. I have a friend who claims he knows a beggar with a three story house in Dhaka. Yet, many give and believe they are doing the proper thing. Finally then there are those that in Bangladesh, like in so many other places, believe it is compassionate to give and that is what Mohammed spoke of.

Here lies one of the twins, on a famous bridge in Dhanmondi, under a torrential rainfall whom everyone scattered from. He remained and so did I, and I paid him. Yes, i paid him.