Ex-offenders

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The Indian ex-offenders regulars here at the cafe tables about this time of day, trying their luck among the after lunch crowd. Prospects at such a place perhaps rather better than elsewhere in the city. Four o'clock sees them land most afternoons. Briskly they go from table to table, two or three singly in the rows with some kind of pre-arranged order of precedence. The edges have been taken from their former, youthful selves — the underlying visible in the tattoos, their rangy, bouncy athletic stride, ear-rings that go beyond the bounds of fashion here. Rehabilitation programs inside achieved some kind of effect, one can see. A determined but entirely polite and patient approach from the lads. Rebuffs leave them unmoved. Here where they are given it is usually in quite a different manner to the abrupt hand-waving received by the tissue and lottery sellers.
         Among the tables they pass with a kind of confessional declaration of past crimes and misdemeanors, their incarceration specifically mentioned at the outset. A written, plastic sheathed statement they display backs up their verbal disclosure. Financial support they plead, which might not be the entire point of the exercise. In a second plastic pouch they hold there are key-rings for sale, made by themselves in prison, we assume. Some kind of elaborate craft in the pendant attached.
         Good to see purchases among the business crowd. A family group including three teenagers today bought a key-ring, with generous smiles bestowed by the well-to-do Grannie at the head of table. Worth the moral lesson for the youngsters without a shadow of doubt. Far more than words.
         Straits Times the other day reported the under achievement of the Indian community, when measured against the Chinese. Scholastic comparisons highlighted; reference to contrasts in "ambition".