Alms for the beggars

I drive a long way to office (25 Kms one way). The duration of the drive is made even longer by the end-less traffic jams on Bangalore's roads.

Roads in India are a good observatory for human nature. Just be observant and you can chance upon some very intriguing behaviour. And if you are the pensive kinds, you can easily go into a endless inquiry into such behaviour.

To elaborate on that statement, take the case of begging on the roads.

Indian roads are populated by a seizable number of beggars. Similar to the distribution of human population being denser in the cities, the distribution of beggars is denser at the signals. The next time you pull up at the signal, just observe the process of people donating to these poor guys. You would notice that...

1. Rich/Well-to-do people (recognisable from the cars they drive or are driven by a chauffer) rarely give any alms to these beggars.
2. The sub-middle-class people (people like truck drivers, cab drivers, transport drivers etc.) always have a coin or two to donate.
3. Middle class people (who drive their own vehicles) display a mixed reaction. Some people donate depending on the merit of the recepient. Some look like they are in a dilemma and before they make up their mind, the signal changes...

Very different from what you would anticipate... Wonder why...