Just a year ago, the Alam family lived hundreds of kilometers away in Pune. Life wasn’t easy there either, but it was stable. Tabrez Alam, the sole breadwinner of the family, ran a small footwear shop on a busy street corner, selling slippers and shoes to passersby. The shop wasn’t big, but it was enough. It kept food on the table, helped pay rent, and gave the family a sense of dignity.
But then came the road widening project, a government order, a line drawn on a map, and in a matter of days, Tabrez’s small shop was gone. There was no compensation, and no alternate space offered. Just dust, rubble, and an uncertain tomorrow. With no other means of livelihood and rising costs making survival impossible, the family made the painful decision to leave the city they had called home for years. They packed their belongings and boarded a train to Delhi with the hope of having a fresh start.
That fresh start brought them to Mehrauli, where the skyline is a mix of high-rise buildings and low-rise despair. In the slum settlement they now call home, Tabrez started over once again, this time with a small kirana (grocery) shop, run from a rented kiosk barely big enough to stand in. The shop sells basic pulses, oil, tea, and soap just enough to keep the business running. With five children to support, the earnings are barely enough to cover food, rent, and other essentials. In that one-room home, there’s something more powerful than poverty: determination.
Despite the family’s financial hardship, both of Tabrez’s sons wake up every morning with schoolbooks in hand and dreams in their hearts. They study by the dim light of a shared bulb, perched on a wooden crate that doubles as a desk. There’s no private tutor, no digital learning, no fancy school, just a dog-eared set of textbooks, second-hand notebooks, and the kind of ambition that refuses to be crushed.
However, this ambition seemed to get dimmed soon, not intentionally but forcefully, due to increasing financial burdens. Tabrez’s sons, Rehaan, a student of grade 12, and Farhaan, a student of grade 10, had to take a tough decision to stop their studies. But they were not satisfied; they thought they had no choice until a ray of hope pierced through the darkness of life and gave light. They termed this ray of hope as the Shaagird Foundation.
The Shaagird Foundation reminded them that poverty doesn’t kill dreams. And in this case, hope still thrives in the face of adversity. Taking the onus of sponsoring the education of both the brothers, the Shaagird Foundation lit their palpable dimming dreams.
The elder son, Rehaan, wants to become a teacher, “someone who can guide others,” he said while talking to the Shaagird Foundation. The younger son, Farhaan, dreams of being a doctor, inspired by the time he saw his mother fall ill and the family couldn’t afford proper treatment. “I want to help people who can’t afford hospital fees,” he said. Stories like these remind us that perhaps, with just a little help, that promise will no longer be a distant dream but a future within reach.
