How much do you think a beggar earns? Is it enough to his daily needs? Or is it sufficient to turn him into a businessman?
A beggar in the morning. A businessman in the evening.
Chhotu Baraik lives a blissful married life with his three wives, one of whom helps run his shop.
Baraik, a resident of Chakradharpur in West Singhbhum district, says he invests in his business all the money he earns from begging. His earnings total Rs 1 million a month.
Baraik, 40, is handicapped in both his legs.
“Initially, I tried hard to make both ends meet, but poverty continued to haunt me like my shadow. I turned to begging and earned good money. I invested it into various businesses to earn good profits,” he says with a smile on his face.
He earns around Rs30,000 a month begging.
While he has own shop that sells utensils which is run by one of his three wives, he is also a distributor for Vestige, a leading company that deals in health and personal care products.
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20 employees
He has 20 staff managing this venture. Once he’s done begging in the morning, he wears a suit and tie in the evening, chairing meetings.
Baraik also claims to enjoy marital bliss with his three wives.
There is never any dispute in their home, he said.
“My first wife runs the utensil shop. The income from begging and the marketing business is distributed equally among my other two wives. Thus there can be no dispute among them,” he said.
Though he makes good money from his businesses, Baraik has no intention of quitting begging.
A similar story was reported from Bihar some time ago when a woman identified as Sarvatia Devi had two savings accounts and made good investments in two life insurance policies in her name.
While she paid an annual premium of Rs31,000 for one life insurance policy of Rs300,000, she paid another Rs5,000 annually for the other policy of Rs100,000.
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