Delhi has its own tempo – loud, fast, chaotic, and vibrant. The blaring autos, crowded markets, knotted wires, and endless foot traffic can all be drowned out. But in all of this madness, our eyes landed on a different thing entirely – bare feet.
Small feet on hot pavement.
"Feet on broken roads, dust, stones, and heat."
"The feet that should have been cared for, but instead weren’t
And right there, in the midst of madness, we experienced a brief, paradoxical halt — a time when kindness was required.
But we came with boxes of new slippers, in an effort to bring a small piece of comfort to children who have to go out in the streets of the city barefoot. When we opened those boxes, a small gathering materialized around us. Not noisy, nor in any way desperate. Just hopeful.
We knelt down and carefully put the new slippers on the kids.
A young boy was laughing while wiggling his toes inside.
A girl was fixating her gaze on her feet, smiling sweetly as if receiving the world.
“Ab dard nahi hoga,” said one of the children, and that sentence is what has remained in our memories until now.”
A fast-paced city and a slow and warm encounter that was purely human.
The chaos of Delhi was not over. The roads remained loud, the markets remained crowded, and the traffic remained crazy.
However, in this corner of the city, things took a turn.
Bare feet became cheerful smiles.
Pain changed to comfort.
And strangers became a small part of each other's stories.
It has been a common experience to find Delhi to be very
However, something else was learned that day, and that is that kindness thrives even in crowded places. It thrives in the hands of caring individuals. For in the eyes of children who dare to hope. In the simplest gesture of offering someone the comfort they deserve. We didn’t just donate slippers. We shared the love in a city that never sleeps. Yet in the middle of all this chaos, we discovered something beautiful— the pleasure of transforming naked feet into smiles.