The current life situation for everyone has changed dramatically – what one could not think of till a certain time frame has cast its shadow on the lateral thinking.
A street urchin has been a classic
example of helping his family to earn some extra bucks to survive in this city.
I have been constantly observing him since quite some time as he roams around
in the market selling Corona Masks. He is upright in his attitude to sell his stuff
and is nonchalant about his selling skills, which he is learning side by side.
He himself wears on the mask which he sells so propitiously.
Many a times he gets shooed away
by people as they don’t want him to be standing beside them when they are
having their binge on the street food – this certainly does not deter him to go
to another prospective customer and start to sell his colorful masks with same enthusiasm
which he had shown to his last customer bet.
The other day when he was at his usual best, he happened to cross paths and I could not resist calling him and trying to give him some extra bucks – that was my foolish sense of understanding which was immediately corrected by his vociferous statement “ I don’t take money as a free gift, you have to buy a mask in lieu of it as I am not a beggar.” I was just flabbergasted to hear this – his sense of self esteem and prestige was on rightly on his conscious best! I immediately corrected my mistake and asked him –
“What is your Name?”
“Shivam” he replied with a
sense of honour.
“Apart from selling these
masks, what do you do Shivam”
“Sir – I used to go to
school in the morning and then in the afternoon I work part time in a clothes
shop as an assistant and finally in the evening I sell these masks, now that
schools are off, I do online classes and rest schedule is the same.”
Listening to his story, I was enormously
made to believe and understand the predicament of many such Shivam's on the
streets of Delhi who are trying to make ends meet and at the same time living
on a faint hope of improving their life for a future sunshine.
After buying mask from him, Shivam quickly turned around to catch hold of his other customer which might shed off some weight from his shoulder bag . I didn’t wanted to leave this moment of life lesson to go a waste and thus captured it to be living on the realms of memory once and for all . I have promised Shivam to show his picture once I have written about him on this virtual space – he confidently posed for this moment of glory – now the onus is on me to find him again and show him his revered space in the world of internet – though I expect he would himself read this little note of appreciation and get motivated to keep on doing good for himself for his betterment.
