While thinking about stories, I remembered this one.
It's during those days in the year 1987 when me and my friend were in our late 20's and had just started working in a private firm as freshers. Those days the wages were not very high nor the cost of living for a middle class family like ours.
Me and my friend used to board a local train from Pune to Lonavla everyday in the morning and after getting down the daily routine was to stand near a tea stall ( Very popularly known as Chaay Tappri in Maharashtra - those from India will know this)and have our refreshing cup of tea. The young boy of around 18 or 20 years used to work as a helper there and with a smile on his face used to happily serve us. In fact seeing us coming without asking he used to bring the tea nicely made with our favorite flavors of ginger and cardamom.
One day my friend asked this boy out of curiosity " if you he can prepare such good tea why don't you start your own stall?" The boy said he comes from a very poor background with no proper education and works because the owner of the stall pays him INR 10 per day plus one afternoon meal and after saying this he immediately rushed to other customers to take their orders as the owner was watching him.
We left from there on our ways to work and got busy as usual with our routines.
Next day while in the train that takes about 1 hour to reach our destination, we started discussing about this topic and the friend suggested why not talk to him again and raise some funds required for the material for him to start on his own.
We met him and asked him if he would be interested to start his own tea stall if we help him. Obviously his eyes were twinkled with joy.
We quickly worked out the minimum required funds and decided to contribute and bought him a stove, a big flask, raw material and crockery etc and some money to buy milk etc for about three days. It did not cost us more than INR 300 each. Though we called it a loan.
The boy started making tea early in the morning from the place where he used to stay and bring it in the flask to sell outside railway station, bus terminals and if it gets over again used to make a second / third round as well.
Within a month's time he returned all our loan and was the happiest man on the earth. In next 6 months he rented out a place and started a small stall of his own and we as usual were his regular customers.
Days, months, years passed. We switched our jobs changed locations got busy in our own life and slowly lost contacts with this boy. Wish those days we had cellphones, emails or social media!
After about 6 years or so, when my friend visited Lonavla, he checked if the stall is still there. He found someone was running the stall on his behalf and this boy had moved back to his village where he runs an eatery where he has a staff to cook, to serve and he sits on the cash counter.
With his dedication, expertise and continuous efforts, today he owns an eatery in his village and perhaps earns much more to serve his family of four.
Feels so proud of the small thought that changed someone's life who was just a stranger!!
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Image source: Google just to let everyone know what chaay tappri looks like.
Note: Would surely upload the images of a happy man if I could find him again.