‘There is no greater joy than giving’

Every time he steps out of his home for work, he always makes it a point to load his car with some biscuits, toys and toffees for the kids he would meet on his way. 

Whoever knocks at his car window at the red light crossings never go empty-handed, they are always greeted with some edible stuff, some soothing words and a hearty smile. 

This might seem a bit unusual in today’s time, where everybody is too cramped up in their own comfortable world to roll down the window and peep into the world that exists on the other side of the window. But for him, it’s a daily chore, a habit that he has happily nurtured over time.

Meet Abhay Chawla, now a professor of Journalism and New media, University of Delhi, who was a trained Electronics engineer from IIT Varanasi. He had served in the IT industry for quite some time but left it to work in the rural areas on education, health and environment. 

At the time when the West launched ‘The Ice-bucket Challenge’ in support of ALS, Abhay invented the Indian version of it – ‘The Atta Theli Challenge’. Whoever was nominated to take up this challenge was required to donate a packet or more of Atta, dal or rice to any poor and needy person around him. He created a group on Facebook and invited over thousands of people from all over India to take up this challenge. 

As a result, over thousands of poor people benefited from it as almost everyone in the group completed the challenge and posted a picture of the same. Some did it to gain accolades among their social circle, while others genuinely and willingly undertook this task and did the noble deed. 

When asked about his motivation behind carrying out this campaign single-handedly he said, “On seeing the Indian youth stupidly copying the challenge (ice-bucket challenge) whereas there are so many local issues that being neglected in the country, the idea struck me. Hunger is a huge issue in India and ‘Atta Theli Challenge’ was a way to involve the community to beat hunger. The more people get involved , the more we can fight off hunger.”

Living in the Millennium City, where the snooty residents wouldn’t allow a single rag picker or a beggar to trespass their premises, he has them as regular visitors to his place. They often drop by for food, for some insightful discussions and sometimes just to share the intricacies of their life and the hardships they face, with their favourite uncle. He is quite the listener, and on some days he just does not leave an opportunity to impart knowledge that would be useful to them and silence all their curiosities about things, quite unfailingly.

Whether it is Holi, Diwali or Christmas he loves to play the Santa Claus for those children. On Holi, he along with his friends took a group of kids living under the metro bridges in Gurgaon to a swanky restaurant for a lunch. Waving away the fear of being judged by the fellow diners, he fulfilled their dream of eating at a big restaurant, enjoying the exquisite cuisine and experiencing air-conditioning for the very first time in their lives. 

On being asked about the kind of reactions he got from the other people present at the restaurant, he said, “A lot of people looked at me with sheer bewilderment, some of them ignored us while some were plain cynical about my motive but quite a few came and congratulated me, the staff fell in line when they found out that I am a professor at DU.”

His Facebook page is full of inspiring stories that would help one to come out of his/her comfortable cocoon and work for the underprivileged strata of the society. 

As he says, “Believe in your ability and understand that we all are interconnected and life is ephemeral. There cannot be a greater joy in giving when you have the resources in abundance.”