When I was about to board my bus for mumbai 2 weeks ago... I had this street urchin come up to me asking me if I wanted to buy a bottle of water from him.. or maybe some chips (he had an assortment of packets with him). Interestingly EVERYTHING was priced at Rs. 15, right from the bottle of mineral water which was Rs. 12 and the chips which was Rs. 13 if I remember right. I queried him on it. He said that he had to do it considering that all the street urchins had to pay Rs. 40 as 'hafta' to the cops walking around the area. I asked him "Rs. 40 per day?" and he said "Rs. 40 for 3 hours in the evening that the buses halt to take passengers."(!!!)
I bought a bottle of water from him and got into my bus. What he said kept nagging me for some weird reason. Got off the bus, called the urchin over, gave him Rs. 40 and told him today's 'hafta' was on me. The last image I had was of him looking at me as if I was crazy and waving bye vigorously as the bus pulled away...
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