Baba ka Dhaba couple’s life has changed since viral video, but it’s not ‘bungalows & cash’

Massive crowds at Baba ka Dhaba are mostly selfie-seekers, brands are fighting sponsorship war. But the 10-member family living in two-room slum house is not complaining.

A police case has been filed against a Delhi-based YouTube blogger for allegedly withdrawing money donated by people for the owner of "Baba Ka Dhaba", whose ordeal amid the coronavirus lockdown was shared widely on social media, leading to donations from well-wishers.

YouTube blogger Gaurav Wasan had shot a video of Kanta Prasad, 80, owner of the dhaba in south Delhi's Malviya Nagar, tearfully recounting his desperation in the months since the lockdown was enforced in late March.

The police case was filed on Friday against Mr Wasan after a complaint by Mr Prasad on October 31, nearly a month after the video was shared widely on social media.

In the complaint, Mr Prasad alleged Mr Wasan "intentionally and deliberately shared only his and his family/friends' bank details and mobile numbers with the donors and collected a huge amount of donation... without providing any information to the complainant".

Mr Wasan has denied the allegations.

"After we received a complaint, preliminary enquiry was done and an FIR was registered under section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of Indian Penal Code and an investigation has been initiated," Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Atul Kumar Thakur said, news agency PTI reported.

Earlier in the day, Mr Prasad said he was hurt over being called "greedy" by some people on social media after he filed a complaint against Mr Wasan and challenged the YouTube blogger to disclose his bank details.

The couple also made it to popular Facebook

The ‘baba’ from Baba ka Dhaba, Kanta Prasad, and his two sons are serving food at the stall when ThePrint visits in the afternoon on 12 October. The menu includes items like matar paneer, green vegetables, dal, rice and roti. The crowd is large, so Kanta Prasad has ordered more than 4 kg of paneer and green peas.

Kanta Prasad’s wife Badami Devi is sitting on a bench, dressed in a pink saree, and is chopping tomatoes.

At the same time, a marketing team representing Pepsi is yelling at their sons about the posters from other brands — which they say is “simply not allowed”.

Before the lockdown, the couple’s older son used to work as a ward boy in a local hospital, while the younger son was a delivery boy for Swiggy. Both lost their jobs and have been helping out at the eatery since the video went viral.

Badami Devi is feeling happy and proud — she says some distant relatives who never bothered to connect with their family in years have now come to meet them. The relatives say they are pleased that their ‘Baba-Dadi (grandparents)’ have become an internet sensation.

One man in the crowd says he got emotional upon seeing the video and booked a ticket to travel from Katra, near the Vaishno Devi shrine, to Delhi. Another, a young man from Punjab, tells a similar story.

Rag-picker Vinod, who is collecting garbage some distance away, is also happy that perhaps someday, someone will make a viral video about him too.

The lure of a viral video has also brought small-time YouTubers from Delhi’s neighbouring areas like Palwal and Noida to Baba ka Dhaba. One of these YouTubers is complaining that he should have been here to cover the dhaba story earlier.

After the video went viral, the local MLA, Aam Aadmi Party’s Somnath Bharti, reached the dhaba the very next day, while Bollywood stars Sonam Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra expressed their desire to help out.

It’s noon on 12 October, and a motley crowd of do-gooders has assembled in front of the Hanuman Temple in Malviya Nagar A Block in south Delhi.

The crowd is here because of a video that went viral five days before, and ended up being viewed by over 30 million people on Instagram and over 50 million on Facebook. In the video, an octogenarian couple could be seen talking with teary eyes, grumbling over a lack of customers since the Covid-19 lockdown at their food stall, ‘Baba ka Dhaba’.

The story grabbed attention thanks to the efforts of food blogger Gaurav Vasan, who has been promoting street-food vendors for the last eight years. The Baba ka Dhaba video was the 136th posted on his three-year-old YouTube channel called ‘Swad Official’, and is now being counted among the most popular videos in the history of food vlogging (video-blogging).

And now, Baba ka Dhaba has not only got a crowd to support the elderly couple, but also sponsorship from leading brands such as Pepsi, Zomato and many payment and social media apps.

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