Real Lives,
Real Change

It was sometime in 2023, on an ordinary evening in Hazratganj, Lucknow. The street was alive in the way it always is—shops lit up, people walking past in a hurry, conversations overlapping, life moving without pause. Near the edge of the road sat a small street cart. The vendor hadn't called out even once. He just sat there, waiting.

Beside him stood his child, barely four or five years old, holding the corner of the cart and watching people pass by. The child seemed used to waiting.

He didn't reply right away. Instead, he smiled—an awkward, tired smile—and let out a small laugh. It wasn't amusement. It felt like a habit, something he'd learned to do when answers were too heavy to explain.

His child tugged at his hand and said something softly. The vendor bent down, replied in a low voice, and the child nodded, as if this was a familiar exchange. I stood there longer than I should have, feeling like a visitor in a reality I had never needed to understand before.

What stayed with me wasn't the cart or the empty space around it. It was the silence. The way his entire day depended on chance—on someone noticing him, stopping, choosing him. There was no certainty, no continuity. Just waiting.

From a pause on the roadside. From a laugh that said more than words ever could. It is a platform built to help local street vendors stay visible, stay connected, and continue selling beyond a single street corner or a single day.

Because no one should have to depend only on luck to make a living—especially with a child watching and learning what survival looks like.