'Why Won't Someone Think of the Poor Kids?'

There was a time when pathetic deadbeat lowlifes working in call centres and referring to themselves as ‘executives’ would call me up and request “a minute of my [fucking] time” to enlighten me about a new housing realty scheme or some great new offer in HDFC bank or about how I had “won” a brand new free caller tune for which I would just have to pay 40 bucks a month. Life was so much simpler in those days; it was uncomplicated. I could tell these morons that “I’m not interested” and hang up without waiting for a response. They weren’t complete boneheads though, or at least their bosses weren’t, so in time they would anticipate the “not interested” response and retaliate with a pleading tone to hear them out. OK, well played, but whatever. I could still hang up.

Then came that DND ruling which allowed consumers to stop these phone calls via some procedure that I don’t know too well. So companies stopped investing heavily in the practice of these cold calls. Instead, they began bombarding me with texts. No worries, brothers; I started blocking those numbers each time I got a text since my unsmartphone does indeed have the option of blocking spam. And yes, I get that they could always spam me with a different number. But at least I could feel superior about blocking every single number of theirs, like one of those first person shooter games. It was challenging; fun, nonetheless.

All good till now: ‘Perils of Capitalism’, I say. Until like ten minutes ago. Indeed, now the power has fallen into the wrong hands.

The newest trend consists of NGOs – those paragons of virtue and morality and integrity and honour and decency and other bullshit middle-management terms – that have diligently employed those same morons [call centre executives with limited language skills; any language] to inundate unwitting consumers into ‘donating’ money for ‘noble causes’.

Personally, I’m against the idea of charity (unless I’m the one receiving it), because it’s degrading, unbecoming, etc. However, I can understand how the concept appeals to religious nuts or wealthy philanthropists trying to sidestep tax regulations and converting black money into white or maybe just generating goodwill to hide their other more devious goings on. Whatever; not my place to judge, and not that I particularly give two shits about the whole mess.

But ultimately, the long-winded point that I’m trying to get at is that charity, fundamentally, should be natural. It should come from within. It can’t be forced, or at least it shouldn’t be.

So when I just got a phone call, from a Delhi landline number no less, even though I have a Bombay number, and I answered, I regretted my decision instantly. It was a dimwitted little shit of a woman telling me that she was calling from an NGO which helps poor kids in need.

‘Oh, the kids, yes, yes, the goddamn kids, they need my money.’

Notice how they never ask you for old clothes or medicines or food or other essentials? They always want your fucking money. Always.

And the ploy is to emotionally blackmail the consumer into offering that money ‘voluntarily’. And once the money comes in, they can buy those poor kids in need Parle-G biscuits and clothes from those hawkers peddling substandard shit outside Jantar fucking Mantar, and they can pocket the rest of my money. Well, technically not ‘my’ money, because I would never pay. But someone’s money. For ‘infrastructure’. And, of course, there’s always the tax rebates when you run an NGO. It’s a classic strategy, this whole social entrepreneurship bullshit that’s doing the rounds.  

But again, whatever. I’m making the very daring assumption that they do in fact help the kids just a little with the money they swindle off of emotional softies. So there’s profit and there’s social welfare, which is great, no shit.

So I told the lady in question, who had called me up to beg me for money, that I “was not interested”, and I was about to hang up. But no; No is just not an acceptable answer for call centre dipshits.

Back she snapped, “But why? Why don’t you want to help out the ‘poor kids in need’? Can you tell me why?”

To which, I asked her where she got my number; I would never voluntarily pass on my number to anyone even vaguely associated with an NGO and that’s the whole truth. She told me they got it from a ‘database company’ – my guess is that it’s called Justdial but I’d rather not speculate.

So I asked her whether she knew it was illegal.

She said, “Why don’t you want to help the poor kids in need?”

“What you’re doing is wrong and underhanded,” I said.

“Why don’t you want to help the poor kids in need?” she replied.

“You do something unethical and illegal and then you try to emotionally blackmail me into giving you my money?” I asked, sort of rhetorically. I was clutching at straws here.

“We aren’t emotionally blackmailing you, Sir,” she said. “We’re asking you to help the poor kids in need. Why wouldn’t you do that?”

“Thank you; not interested,” I managed, and hung up.

She won.

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