Baba Ka Dhaba food stall of the aged couple gets attention and sympathy on social media

Pandemic-triggered Plight of an old food stall owner upheld by a video of a food blogger

Monday, 12th October 2020

It is a known fact that the Covid-19 pandemic has given a thrashing blow to many of the small businesses that were in pretty good shape prior to the pandemic. The worst hit is the businesses that belong to the food & restaurant industry. Roadside stalls & street food vendors are not receiving many customers as most people are now dependant largely on the savings for their regular needs. Thus, these small food businesses are actually left with meager or no income at all. Amid this crisis, a video that has gone viral on the social media has kindled a beam of hope for one such small owner of a food stall. 

The owner is known by the name of Kanta Prasad, aged 80 years and his stall is popularly known by the name of Baba Ka Dhaba. His stall is located in the Malviya Nagar of New Delhi. The aged owner and his aged wife run the dhaba. Due to the ongoing covid pandemic they were struggling hard to make the both ends meet. Gaurav Wasan, a food blogger posted a video on social media upholding the plight of the aged couple. This video recently went viral.

In that video, we get to see the stall’s owner Kanta Prasad explaining how they are struggling to earn due to the pandemic-triggered reduced footfall. He showcased the dishes offered at the stall such as Aloo Soya, Paneer Matar and Dal which are all quite reasonably priced; i.e. between Rs. 30 and Rs 50. While talking about his situation, the owner began to sob.

In an interview with NDTV Gaurav Wasan, the food blogger said, "When I came here yesterday I had goosebumps on listening to their plight. They had earned barely Rs. 70 a day. They had come at 6:30 am to set up the shop and had spent Rs. 500 but even after lunchtime they had earned only Rs. 70. So I decided to record and share the video to help them. I am overwhelmed with the kind of support that he has received since then. It is great that there are so many people who want to help this man struggling due to poverty."

The video received more than 9 million views on the Instagram within a day from the day of posting. On Twitter too, hashtag #BabakaDhaba is a top trend. Many top celebs like Ravichandran Ashwin and Sonam Kapoor responded to the video and said that they’ll be trying to help this small food stall owner out.

Source: NDTV