The Smiley without a smile

Walking through the streets of the Delhi University campus is always a great experience. Away from the workload, the chaos of the office, you can sense the energy that you seem to have lost the moment you came into the professional world. While I was enjoying some street food on the roads of Kamla Nagar,I felt as if  someone was pulling my woolen jacket from below. I am precisely mentioning the term woolen here to emphasize on the fact that it was a cold day, a chilling cold day!

I annoyingly looked down to see who was not letting me enjoy my delight. There was a small girl, must be 9-10 years of age, shivering in cold without adequate clothes to cover her entire body. Someone would have donated a coat to her which she not only used to cover her body but also pulled it up to save her head from the cold wind.

I thought she was hungry. I offered her some food. But she was least interested in that. All she wanted was to sell the products she was carrying. The girl did not have any smile on her face, but she was selling smilies. Some in form of stickers, some in form of batches and others attached with pencils. 10 rupees was the cost of each.

The north campus of Delhi University is an area where some of the brightest students of India reside. Every year lakhs of students face the battle of scoring the highest in their board exams and those who win get rewarded with a chance to study in some of the best colleges of the country, situated in this part of Delhi. The university campus is not only the place for the brightest minds of the country but also has a pool of the most promising politicians of the future. And amidst the crowd of those intellectual and bright minds and promising politicians was this small, innocent poor girl. I wonder if not a single one of those privileged ever thought about doing any good to this not so privileged child.

Thinking about all these, I walked ahead. The street was cluttered with posters of student wings of different political parties. Some promised a better syllabus structure for the students, some promised a safer place for women, some other wished a Happy Republic Day.

There was a stark contradiction between the writings on the wall and the reality on the street. Like the small girl, there were many other children selling different stuffs on the street but I spotted a special boy amongst them. I call him special because he had a tray in his hand carrying tea. Yes, he was a chaiwala. Chiawla is undoubtedly one of the most discussed terms of the political scenario of this country. I took out my mobile phone to take his snap, but he realized it and ran away. I could only capture a hazy picture of his. Just hours ago, I had heard the US president talking about Chai pe charcha, the meeting he had with the self proclaimed and most reputed chaiwala of this country, our honourable Prime Minister.

I wondered, “Can that PM chiawala turn the world around for this chotu chaiwaal?”

Suddenly an update from a popular news paper application popped up on my mobile phone. It stated: “The suit that PM Modi wore during his meeting with president Obama had his name inscribed on it in minute letters. The cost of the suit is estimated to be around 8 lakhs”

Was this the answer to my question?