Murree is a beggars paradise. Most of them have a more hands on approach to begging than the common brand of ’de de na’ people. These people are trained professionals and have evolved various new techniques.
A dangerously retarded baba and cheap bubblegums, after the jump.
The Gum
They have made a gum, especially for the beggars in murree to sell. I don’t know what it’s called and I don’t care. But its wrapping is brightly colored, which, to me, says: “Eat me and wake up without a liver.” Needless to say, demand is low. So the beggars think of new ways to make it sell. They literally throw the gum in your lap. They’ll say: “Take it. It’s free”. And they’ll leave.
Two minutes later they’ll come back and say: “10 rupees for the gum.” And it works. The bewildered victim, who is by now already onto his second stick of gum has no other choice but to pay up. I could go on about their gum selling techniques, but I won’t.
Tag Team Begging
One new method, which I call tag team begging, involves two seemingly unrelated people working in conjunction to scare people out of their money.

Unfortunately I have first hand experience of this. I was walking on the road and I felt someone grab my arm. It was a small bald man, dressed in a bright green shalwar kameez, and doing a very credible impression of a dangerously retarded person. Credible enough to scare the shit out of me. I tried to get him to let go but I couldn’t. As if things weren’t bad enough, a fat, dirty woman to my right started screaming: “Give baba what he wants. There’s no telling what he’ll do when he’s angry.”
That was enough for me. It didn’t look like baba was after my money. I pushed (sort of punched actually) the green man aside and ran far away. But the event left me deeply traumatized and I kept looking over my shoulder for the entire time I was in Murree.
Basically, if you’re going to Murree, don’t go near the small bald man sitting at the bottom of mall road. And I wouldn’t recommend trying the gum either.







#1 by Romaisa on November 20, 2009 - 4:09 pm
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Nicely put. So true.!!! they are creepy for sure.
#2 by Mamoon on January 9, 2010 - 4:45 pm
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I was also surrounded by such beggers in Hala, Sindh but they weren’t selling gums but thumping the mirror of car to get money..really vexing
#3 by romaisa on January 13, 2010 - 10:36 pm
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haha, they can be really creepy sometimes. Not looking forward to this during my visit.
#4 by Aleena on January 15, 2010 - 5:07 pm
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haha..yeah i know that gum..one of them actually followed me for a whole ten minutes, insisting that i buy that gum and when i finally gave in, another five came at me! :p
#5 by shayan on January 15, 2010 - 5:56 pm
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yeah its never ending
#6 by Rabya on April 13, 2010 - 12:53 am
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Woah that’s so creepy, I remember it happened to me too :/
#7 by MarkSpizer on May 3, 2010 - 12:50 pm
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great post as usual!
#8 by Miask on May 12, 2010 - 12:46 pm
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Ahahahaha..I remember that one time when this old dirty woman carrying a Pakistan flag started following you around and hitting you with it. Ufff, it was really FUNNY. God.
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#10 by Taylor on May 12, 2011 - 2:27 am
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This is a good dose of reality of what to expect as a traveler and essentially target in Murree as well as other places.
Goes to show that you need to keep you wits about you so you don’t end up taken advantage of, or worse
#11 by Fiona Sparks on September 6, 2011 - 2:43 am
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What a wake up. It’s sad that there are places where this is common place. I wonder how soon we’ll see this behavior in America? I’m already seeing more and more panhandlers, and they seem to be getting much bolder.
Fiona
#12 by Michael on June 13, 2012 - 3:51 am
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“Eat me and wake up without a liver.”
I’d be more inclined to worry about a missing kidney, but we obviously think alike!