Social media has always been powerful and effective when it comes to connecting and bringing the people of various disciplines together for a societal cause and for fighting against injustice. The platforms that had stretched across all corners of India hold testament of putting spotlights on issues, changing and inspiring the lives of others, sharing the grieves, and sending solidarity and support to the unknown people in the country and sometimes beyond the borders.
Social media platforms have no dearth of users and the platforms have now shown the testament that it won't have a dearth of love and support among the users after social media played a pivotal role in changing the life of a couple in Delhi, who have been battling to win bread for their survival. 80-year-old Kanta Prasad and his wife have been running a roadside food stall 'Baba Ka Dhaba' in Malviya Nagar in South Delhi for the past thirty years. Kanta has been one of the millions to get affected by the lockdown and he and his wife were ought to brace up the adverse effects of lockdown.
As the geriatric couple has been suffering to make money to fill their stomachs, Kanta Prasad has shared his grieving situation with full of tears as his food stall hadn't got any customers for the past few days. Their tears and pains were captured by Instagram user Gaurav Wason and the latter had shared the video of teary Kanta Prasad with his grieving concern on his Instagram page on Wednesday and soon after he shared the video, it was rampantly spread across the country with many seeing the video of the elderly businessman.
With the rampant reception for the video across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it had emerged as a nationwide movement with many pledging to help the couple by lifting up from their plight and struggles. When Kanta Prasad opened the stall on Thursday, the elderly couple had a moment to cherish and hope as there was a queue before their stall as people from all walks of lives had assembled before the stall to eat food and to help the couple to get relief from the struggles, thanks to the social media, which changed Kanta's life in one day.
When the video of Kanta Prasad posted on social media, many celebrities and influencers had appealed to the Delhi people to visit the Dhaba and grab a meal. The drive to helping the struggling couple had reached the nationwide trend where hashtag #BabaKaDhaba was trending on Twitter on Friday. Kanta's 37-year-old son said that his parents started cooking at 6 am like every day and when they reached the shop at 8. 30 am, they found a long queue standing outside the shop.
As the sequel of the viral video, hundreds had gathered before the shop to eat and the couple had seen a smile on each other's face after seeing dozens of people lined up to wipe off their tears. The couple surprised to see that the food items like chapati, rice, mixed vegetable, and paneer were sold out by 12 noon and all these items were priced between Rs 10-50.
Usually, during the lockdown, the couple had rarely raised money to meet their needs as their food was mostly unsold at the end of the day. According to reports, Kanta Prasad would be saving at least Rs 4,000 to 5,000 per month before the COVID-19 lockdown and he had used his savings to try to meet the needs during the lockdown as his savings were dried up and with no customers, they were ended up with the trouble to pedal their lives ahead for survival.
After Gaurav Wason shared the video of Kanta Prasad on Instagram, the life of Kanta had changed and took a happy turn and his happiness would be with him permanently as following the video, food delivery giant Zomato had come forward and extended their support to Kanta Prasad and said that it would be listing their Dhaba on the application and now, the people can easily order from Dhaba through Zomato.
Zomato took to Twitter and said, "UPDATE: baba ka dhaba is now listed on zomato and our team is working with the elderly couple there to enable food deliveries thank you to the good people of the internet for bringing our attention to this". To his surprise, Gaurav Wason said he didn't imagine that his post would gain nationwide attention and he stated that "With the kind of support this has created, I will continue to focus on other food joints that need help in this difficult time".
there are many other baba ka dhabas out there who need help- if you know a similar outlet, go to https://t.co/LvDa7NiYL5 to share their details and we promise we'll do what we can 😇
— zomato india (@ZomatoIN) October 8, 2020
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