365 Days of Suresh - A Cobbler in New Delhi

BMWs with roaring radios, branded clothes, iPhones, bungalows, and a bank balance that will pop your eyes out of your sockets. They go to elite parties, wear elegant clothes, live in a sophisticated complex, and talk with an accent. They have the world in their pockets, yet one thing remains missing.

One thing, that a middle aged cobbler of Delhi has the gift of – contentment. After a tiring day, when he comes home to his wife and three children – two boys and one girl – one thing that doesn’t falter with his tired heart, is his smile.

With only two hundred to three hundred rupees in his pocket, in a world where without money one can’t buy a thing, he lives, and does so with a happy heart.

After being kicked out of the chaiwala’s stall for ‘wasting’ his time in asking unnecessary questions, which would include anything but ‘Bhaiya ek chai dena’, we went to the cobbler across the narrow road, who was only too happy to answer our questions regarding his life.

“I went to school when I was young, studied till the fourth standard. But I couldn’t do it Madam,” he said, when we asked him about his education.

A practically uneducated man, who spends most of his day fixing shoes, sitting on a pavement, knows how important it is to educate his children, for they may be able to lead a better life than the one he does.

“I enrolled my kids in a government school, and the three of them study there happily. They really like to study,” he said.

When asked if he has high hopes from his children, that they’d be able to support him in his old age, he shrugs. “It’s all a game of kismet, luck. I just want to carry out my responsibility and give them the best I can. I don’t have any dreams of my own from them.”

One question that was circling in our minds was how he remained content with a meagre income of 200-300 rupees a day.

“I used to have much more money a few years back. Then my father fell ill, and a lot of money got used up there. I used to keep readymade shoes and slippers in my stall too, but then I lost a lot of money and couldn’t afford to do it. Earlier I used to be able to save some money, but now it becomes impossible. The money I earn falls short sometimes,” he said, without an ounce of regret or unhappiness in his voice.

When asked if it bothered him to see the world achieve such great heights, leaving him on the pavement on a roadside, he smiled, “There’s no reason for it to bother me.”

He lives in a house in the village of Silampur in Jamna Par, where he says the condition is not too great, and there is poverty all around. He used to own a house in Trilokpuri, which his father sold a couple of years back. He now lives with his two brothers and their families, combined with his own.

“Chacha lives in the house below ours,” he said. His younger brother receives food from the BPL card, but the rest of them do not have the same luck. “We live in a pakka-makaan now, Madam. The BPL card is only for those who live in the jhuggis, roadside non cemented houses.”

He continued applying glue to a shoe and fixing it, while I sat there and wondered how a man who did the same kind of work for long unbroken hours, every day of the year, and had been doing so for twenty two years, could stand coming to the little corner of the road every day from his house, knowing that the day stretched out in front of him would be no different than the ones he had seen all his life.

We talk about job satisfaction, but to see a man so satisfied with a job that barely gave him the means to buy the basic needs of living, was something I had not expected to come across in my lifetime.

Don’t the kids ask for toys and gifts like any normal kid in his childhood? “I usually don’t have enough money to buy them gifts. But if business is looking good, I buy them clothes and gifts on Diwali,” he said.

I sat silently and looked at the man who fixed shoes of all kinds of people all through the day, but didn’t find it necessary to fix his own torn slippers. It saddened me to look at his happy eyes which were content with his lifestyle, with what he has, and who he is.

But then I thought of the millions of people who were out there in the world, changing jobs every day, cursing anyone and everyone they could find, and living the life of unhappy men.

Suresh Kumar, who has given twenty two years of his life to this city he calls his home – which has practically given him nothing in return – can teach the world one thing that not many people have the good luck of possessing – The Art of Contentment.