How a Slumboy makes most of Lockdown - 5

Brief Recap!
It's 3 am. My mind is pre-occupied imagining all the odds that can turn my life upside down. Dadabhai gave us uniforms and told us to gather at 4 am. He was either gonna make our lives better or maybe betray us by forcing us to do some shady shit. My trust on mankind was gone for a toss. On one hand there is a virus killing us and on other there is a deadly creature killing the world. There will never be a vaccine to save you from another human being.

Finally, I woke up for a bath. There was a queue at the tap from where we filled water. All 18 of us gathered to take bath and Dadabhai gave us a soap. We've never used a soap in our lives. There we were, dressed in torn clothes but trying to look sober for a mission unknown. We all looked like cultured salespeople in uniform, maybe representing a company. We were briefed by Dadabhai about our work. After hearing those words, my heart sank but maybe I was dreaming. All the negative thoughts that I had, seemed to have replaced with tranquility. I immediately started crying. Every single eye was staring at me with suspense. Why was I crying? Because I over-thought upon a situation.

Dadabhai was a Man of God in true sense. The plan was to go to Sardar Market (where you get vegetable and Fruits at wholesale rates) and buy vegetables worth 45,000 Rs that we had in hand. Wait. We had 22,000 Rs that Dadabhai collected from people who did not even give it voluntarily, I guess. The rest of it came from the grocery owner. Remember we kept some 5000 Rs as advance with him? Dadabhai managed to get the remaining amount from him as loan for a few days. Meanwhile, he also managed to gather all the ladies and make 45 teams of 2 people each. (we had no idea that this happened). The beggars were turned into salesman by another beggar. Dadabhai was like starting a business and serving the community. Each team was allocated an area to serve to, individual streets and societies. It was the 19th day of Quarantine and the local corporator had a plan when Mr. Modi announced the extension of the lockdown.

This task was allocated by Corporator to Dadabhai. The area was strictly under quarantine zone and each one of us would be allowed to go to a particular area and sell the vegetables. It took us 3 hours to buy the necessary groceries from Sardar Market, load them and unload them at various areas where the teams were already in place following social distancing.

By 9:00 am, the vegetables were all out. Everybody re-assembled at Dadabhai's place with their moneybag. We collected the money and Dadabhai had brought vegetables for our Mohalla. The Grocery store uncle helped us too. All the money was handled by him. He counted and we had almost 93,000 Rs. From 4 am to 10:30 am we doubled our money. All of us felt proud of earning our money. It was far outweighed from the job that we had of begging. For the first time in our lives, we were glorified and felt the sense of pride in doing what we did. They say,

'Everything that happens, happens for a reason'

'Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.'

This was the dream that neither of us had seen. What are Dreams? Dreams are just a fictional imagination of whatever your mind has created over the period of time. For dreams, you need knowledge. An illiterate can never get a dream of becoming an astrophysicist because he'd not know whether anything as such exists. Similarly, we beggars were never brought up to have big dreams. But now, our eyes gleamed with the ray of hope. I am sure that night everyone saw a dream. A dream of hope coming back to our lives.

Next day, we spread our coverage. There was a separate team for buying and delivering and a separate team for selling. And a team of 6 people collecting money. Within a week, we were selling the vegetables worth 18 lakhs each day. It all happened smoothly. We were given appreciation from the society and we felt immense pleasure in doing something like this. The commissioner of Surat called us and appreciated us for our efforts. The plan was further expanded into major parts of Surat by other mohallas across the town. All of us were working and we had the support from the government too! This virus indeed changed our lives. Officially, the APMC sardar market was closed but still the essentials were reaching out to public. How? There was a team managed by Dadabhai and I was an important part of it.

'Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. 

It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.'

Well, I don't understand these quotes that much but all I know is they sound true. We could have sold vegetables like this a long back. All we needed was 2000 Rs to start and we could have managed easily but we didn't. Changing our destiny maybe was a matter of choice but it is said,

'Better Late than Never'

I questioned myself, 'Does the walker choose the path or the path chooses it's walker?'

We managed to work so hard that we lost track of money. After 8 days, Dadabhai had enough capital. He tried repaying to the Grocery uncle, but he denied taking it back. It was a charity from him. On that day, we got to know his name. He was our life support, Mukesh bhai. Dadabhai returned 2000 to every family who gave 1000 each. Also, he gave 2000 Rs to everyone who had been working voluntarily. Afterall, we all deserve to get a share of something. From 9th day onwards, everyone was given a daily wage of 400 Rs. We were 700 people working on this project and still never gathered around together. Everyone was assigned a society. He/She used to be there by 7 am. There were delivery trucks consisting 4 people. These vehicles were provided by SMC(Surat Municipal Corporation). It was overall a well-managed effort. The turnover has been stable at around 25 Lakhs per day. Our lives had changed.

It was 29th day of Quarantine and we had developed a fixed schedule by then. Working from 4 am to 11 am, my inner soul was happy. After that, I had my own leisure time with my cellphone. By then, I could frame the sentences and understand basic words. There was this app called 'DuoLingo' that helped me learn. It took around 40 hours to finish a basic level of any language and I spend 6 hours each day. That's how dedicated I was. The result of which is my attempt at writing this.

By now if you're reading this story, it's 52nd Day and during this lockdown, I've learnt a language. These few days are more than enough for your transformation. I don't know if anyone will read this, but I am posting this on internet as a task given by Dadabhai. Please rectify my mistakes and reach me out. Life has been better. Hope that I could become someone someday. Till then, a 17-year-old Bablu is happy with this life. I wish this lockdown never ends. I am trying to make the most of it. I hope you too are exploring and transforming your lives.

Yours Sincerely or truly,
Bablu