Chennai :

Should you chance upon a 50-something, bespectacled man giving a haircut or a bath to a destitute person in the city, stop by and ask him how you can help, if you can buy a bottle of water or medicine, or some food for the less fortunate individual he is caring for.

Siddique Ali, a resident of Sidco Nagar, owns a small shop and sells and repairs bags. He also delivers cooking gas cylinders to commercial establishments. He has a family to look after, a wife and an 18-year-old daughter, though his two sons now have jobs of their own. But he also does what he can to make the lives of society’s outcasts a little less miserable.

With medicines, soap and towels, a set of clothes, bottles of water, biscuits and food, Ali goes around the city on his two-wheeler to help people who have been abandoned by their families, the orphans and beggars and the other abject people whose presence others usually refuse to acknowledge.

Ali, who steadfastly refused to give an interview to this correspondent for three days because he did not want any publicity, says most barbers will not give homeless people a haircut even if they had the money for one. “Restaurants will turn them away even if they can pay for food,” he says.

“I wanted to do so much for my father but, when he passed away a decade ago, I decided to do something for the needy,” he says. “When I someone in tattered clothes, I stop and ask them if they will change their clothes if I gave them a new set and Rs 10. Most agree,” Ali says, recalling how one homeless man slapped him because he suspected that he was trying to steal his money.

“When I clean, bathe and shave the needy, poor and destitute and cut their hair and change their clothes, there are times when they cry in joy,” he says. “That is the most wonderful moment for me. What greater blessing can a man want?”

Everyone can do small things to make the world a better place, Ali says. “Place water on the terrace for thirsty birds to drink. Don’t throw away rotten tomatoes… Squirrels love them. Keep them on a compound wall and they’ll find them.”

Sometimes people stop and offer him money. “I don’t accept money. Depending on the condition of the person I am helping, I ask them to buy medicine, water or some curd rice,” Ali says.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Daniel George, TNN / February 20th, 2015