By Vidya Pradhan

When your car stops at a traffic light in India, invariably a swarm of street kids collects around it. Maybe you are an IT professional. Maybe you are a tourist. Either way, your pockets are jingling with change from your last meal or chai; change that is, for all practical purposes, useless to you.

It is so tempting to hand over that change to one of the raggedy street urchins. Maybe it will buy them their next meal, save them from having to hold their hand out for an hour or two. You get the warm glow that doing a good deed creates; they get a reprieve from their unhappy lives, even if it is for a short while.

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