Bhavathi biksham dehi!

In India:

They wear torn clothes, re dirty, stick-thin and pathetic, trudging wearily along the streets.

Amma, thaye, pichchai podu ma, they say.

In NZ:

They ride on flash bikes, are almost always well-dressed, sometime in school uniforms. And they ask like they’re doing you a favour.

Hello there, you wouldn’t have a couple of dollars on you, would you?

And yet they’re both beggars!