It was the morning before the Valentine's and I was walking towards Rose Garden, for peace of mind, and a place to study (& not for any other purpose that you may otherwise imply).

 After taking a detour from the IIT campus, I reached the subway, and as I ventured into it, and saw three young lads, school-kids, of class 7th or 8th as one would suppose, collecting donations for some Sanstha in Haridwar, which worked towards the betterment of orphans in Uttaranchal. (Mind you, the name is Uttarakhand now!)

  They had a laminated card of the organization, which although colored, looked as if it were taken out on a simple computer paper, instead of the regular, thick ones.

 They were giving out small receipt-card/chits which had a rose printed on it, together with a 'Welcome' note. (sans any no. or contact whatsoever) and were noting down the names of the donors, along with the donation amount, on a simple notepad.)

 On seeing this, I enquired about the receipts for this purpose, to which they simply said: their school had set them a target of Rs. 1000/- to collect for this very organization, which is in close contact with their school, and that they didn't have it with them. When I asked about their school, they said 'Khalsa' but when I specifically asked them which Khalsa, they dodged the question without saying anything.

 One of them was very outgoing, and started putting down a donation-slip in my name, stating since I were enquiring a lot about them, they expected a big-donation from me in return.
 And when I asked them in turn for a cash-receipt, one of them offered me a 'jhapphi' instead!

 After drilling the importance of a cash receipt into their heads (so that nobody should misunderstand them as frauds!) I went ahead, and somehow, a thought appeared in my mind that I should let the local policemen know about the whole thing.

 Fortunately, a policeman was standing right near the barricades next to the florist, outside the SDA market, and I told them about the incident, and asked him to check in those 'kids', just in case, it was a case similar to the 'Kashmiri refugee kids' collecting money, for food and housing, in the camps setup for them after the earthquake! (It's another long story)
  
  I told them that one of them could go from one side, and the rest from the other, along with pleading for tackling them tactfully, rather than physically, but, they said they'll handle this on their own and moved on towards the subway, all from one side.

 Worried about the kids, I decided to stay on for a few moments to see what happens to them; and lo. before I could think of anything, they climbed back, rather hurriedly, and went straight to the paanwallah.

I went near them, and with a bit concern, I asked them: They escaped, didn't they?
 In reply they asked me: "How old were they?"

 I realized then, that I had forgotten to tell them the age of the kids; and they must have mistaken them for the small Kashmiri Kids aged about 5 to 10 or so; instead of a good ol' 15 to 17 years..

  The major siappointment from this whole incident was not that the police couldn't catch them, but that they escaped pretty easily from the police, and that must have raised their confidence-levels even more, that they can get way so easily, after duping a dozen or so unsuspecting statues of generosity...

 About time we started looking for better means to demonstrate our charitable spirit.