Debt is mounting on the hero teaseller of Mumbai's CSMT and business is far from propelling to wane his woes. Now, Chotu Chaiwala is headed home to Bihar as business post lockdown amid coronavirus pandemic has been dismal.
Back in 2008, when Mumbai was rocked by the deadly terror attack, Chhotu had managed to ferry injured people from CSMT’s to St George’s Hospital on a hand-driven cart even while Ajmal Kasab and Ismail Khan were still shooting down people in the suburban section of the station. He was hailed a hero then. But now, Chotu is in a debt of Rs 3 lakh and has his life savings exhausted too, Mirror Now reported.
Chotu's business of two tea stalls outside CSMT’s south exit has taken a bad hit over the last five months of coronavirus lockdown. His minimal earnings come from the sale of tea from a flask. The money from selling tea in a flask is not enough to support his family and three boys who work at his tea stall.
Chhotu had come to Mumbai as 12-year-old boy in 1995 and worked at a food stall as a helper. Year later he managed to have his own tea stall and even employ three more boys. However, the lockdown has made it difficult for the business to sustain. To pay the salaries of the boys, Chotu had to take loan.
It was only in February that Chhotu rented a licenced tea stall near his first one. He says he spent Rs 1 lakh to stock up his new stall. But a month later things turned for the worse when a lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus was imposed across the country.
Hi act of bravery and selflessness during the deadly attack of 26/11 got him recognition and a cash reward of Rs 70,000. He invested the money in his first stall and started earning well for himself. But the pandemic has changed it all for him.
In 2008, when the terrorists attacked India's financial capital, Chhotu was standing outside the station master’s cabin and Kasab and Khan started firing. Chhotu had a narrow escape and hid in the cabin. He played dead when Kasab came firing more bullets. Chhotu saw the station master lying with a bullet injury in his chest. He pressed his wound with a cloth and took the station master and many injured to St George’s hospital on a hand-cart.
His heroic deeds even helped him sustain the lockdown crisis. In fact, it was majorly the railway officials of the CSMT, who remember his bravery of 2008, who lent him the money to pay the helpers at his tea stall.
But now survival seems difficult in the city that has been Chhotu's home for 23 years and is now going back to his home in Dumri village in Bihar's Muzaffarnagar district.
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