Hardening Up

It has happened to me quite a few times in quite a few places. The first time it happened was when I was 14 years old and standing in a rather violent queue for a first day first show in my native land. A boy of my age decently attired came up to me and said that he had come from the nearby town and had lost his parents and did not have the bus fare to go back. I trusted him and gave him two rupees [the cost of the cinema ticket was three rupees just to give u a sense of "relativity"]. Crooked that I was even at that age, I started thinking if I had done the right thing or if I was royally cheated [My friends took me for a fool] and I promised not to be so gullible again.
The next time it happended was in Calcutta again at a cinema ticket counter, this time I was old enough to watch adult movies. A smartly dressed gent came up to me and on the pretext of losing his wallet asked for 25 rupees. I hesitated for a moment and then give away 25 rupees [a dress circle ticket at New Empire cost only 5.75 rupees then, u get the "relativity".
The last time it happened was in New Delhi railway station one fine morning when I was catching a train to Bihar. Again well-dressed gentleman with a wife in tow came up to me and said they they too were victims of pickpockets and had lost their money and tickets to Patna. Yes once again, I forked out 300 rupees again with that nagging feeling at the back of my head "was I being taken for a ride?".
Many years passed without trouble and things started improving. In fact for six years in my small way, I started paying a pound to homeless, buskers and drunks in various nooks and crannies of London. But the deal was simple, you give money for food or beer [no busker claimed to have been cheated by a recording company and no drunk claimed to buy vitamins]. And I started thinking world had changed while I was getting older - we were moving towards more transparency and clear RoI on charities.
So when this old lady stood in front of my seat in the AC first class compartment of Rajdhani Express one evening at Mumbai Central and claimed that she wanted to go back to Azamgarh and needed six hundred rupees, I hesitated checked my head first and then my heart, the latter once again won and I parted with the money feeling rather smug having helped an elderly person reach her family.
My happiness lasted for two weeks. Exactly a fornight later under exactly the same circumstances, I found the same lady in front of me with the same story asking for exactly the same amount of money. I will not tell you what I did... But all these and many other stories came to my mind that night and I was convinced that all my life I was gullible and a victim of cheats.
Now I am a hardened man, [I have even stopped paying the beggar at Defence Colony the customary one rupee that I paid everyday for three years].
Can you blame me? I keep feeling guilty though, especially when I pass under the Andheri flyover in Mumbai or the Moolchand crossing in Delhi.