With a double PhD, this man was begging in the streets

Jaipur: Till this afternoon, Dinesh Dwivedi, age 50, a retired school teacher, spent large parts of his day begging in the streets of Jaipur.

He has a pension of Rs 35,000 a month, and owns a small haveli in the walled city of Jaipur and shops in this crowded market place.

But Mr Dwivedi, a double PhD in Sanskrit, was beaten often by his son, a 25-year-old with an alleged drug habit.

"I begged him again and again, with folded hands, to spare me...but he would hit me with a stone...or a stick."

Mr Dwivedi has three children. His elder daughter is married but his younger son and daughter live with him. His son, Saurabh, is unmarried and is a school dropout.

"I was not born addicted to smack," he says, sitting on the steps at his father's house. "I was tricked into addiction by people who want to grab the property that my father and I own."

But neighbours say Saurabh beats both his father and his younger sister mercilessly. He also sells anything he can lay his hands on in the house to pay for his drug habits.

Local government officials heard of Mr Dwivedi's plight through media reports today and showed up this afternoon at his house in Bhrampuri in Jaipur's old city to help. They went out looking for him with his son, and found him begging only two lanes away from his house. Mr Dwivedi, who could barely crawl on the road, was then moved to a state-run home for senior citizens.

For the past five years, however, in a busy neighbourhood, neighbours and people who lived inside Mr Dwivedi's house on rent, walked past him as he asked strangers for a few coins without intervening.