Mumbai: At a time Mumbaikars will be busy partying and ringing in the New Year, a group of youngsters will spend the 31st evening plying good Samaritans. A group of 70 youngsters, part of ‘A Cup of Smile’, will be serving a cup of tea and some biscuits to policemen on duty. A Cup of Smile is a voluntary youth initiative which involves a bunch of people coming together to distribute ‘chai’ to policemen on duty on the 31st night at Marine Drive, Girgaon Chowpatty and surrounding areas.
This is the third year the volunteers of this youth initiative will distribute tea with a smile to all policemen and onlookers — right from Walkeshwar to NCPA at Worli. The group also has a Facebook page to promote their cause and will rope in as many volunteers as they can.
One of the founders of the group, Dnyaneshwari Velankar, a student of journalism, said, “I discussed the idea with two of my friends and we decided to distribute tea to policemen. We concluded that if it weren’t for these men in khaki, we wouldn’t be celebrating New Year’s eve or any other festival.”
The group is mainly active on two occasions — Ganpati and NY eve — and has two smaller offshoots in Thane and Pune. The lucky ones in Thane and Pune will be served flavoured tea whereas in Mumbai it will be just a steaming hot cup of ‘chai’. Velankar added, “In Thane, there is only one spot – Talao Pali – where there is heavy police deployment; as against this, Mumbai has a heavy deployment at various places in south Mumbai.”
The participating volunteers have contributed Rs 200 each towards the drive. While most chose to volunteer, some who learned about the initiative through social media chose to donate money towards the cause. Others too can be a part of this initiative by either participating in the distribution process, contributing whatever sum of money they feel like, or simply sponsoring either chai/biscuits/paper cups/tissues/ chai containers, etcetera. The group has raised over Rs 12,000 and expects to have last minute walk-in volunteers to help them serve as many policemen as they can.