Divya Kala Mela, (A winter fair hosted for handicapped people) near India Gate.

Namaste 🙏

Hope you’re doing great!!!

While roaming around near India Gate, we found that there is one fair that was going on there when we saw a lot of camps on both sides of the India Gate. we got curious and went near it to find out that that fair was specially dedicated to handicapped people. I’ve never seen such fair in my life before, so we entered inside to see what’s there.

The name of the fair itself suggests that it’s for handicapped, and it’s an art fair. Divya is short for Divyang in Hindi which means handicap, Kala is art and mela is a fair. so it was an art fair, especially dedicated to handicapped people. It’s only in winter time that events like this occur in Delhi NCR as weather is adequate for hosting such event otherwise, in summer times, there are very less fairs around. It was a 10 day fair starting from 12th of December and ending on 22nd December, and there were cultural events happening every day there in the stage that was built right in the centre.

We came to know that this fair was hosted by the government of India to support the handicapped people and there were many artworks that were kept there that was made by handicap only and all the profit earned from the sales would also go to handicap was a really good initiative to support the employment of handicap people by the government of India, and I really appreciate the effort of government to support them.

The fair was divided in three main parts, the first was the handicraft section. Second one was the Centre stage and the third one was food court and most of the people sitting in the shops were handicapped people. There were other people who were there to help them, but the shop owner was a handicapped person.

In the photograph above, you can see one of the shop owners who was roaming around the fair. Another good thing that was there was there were names of the Owner written in front of every shop, and also the place from where they belonged.

What example there was this beautiful fancy light shop there who was hosted by a guy from Uttar Pradesh and was selling top notch lights. I wanted to buy some, but I didn’t wanted to carry it while we roam around the states of Delhi. There were many such kind of Shop that were specially dedicated to one kind of thing only.

It was really a vibe of a fair. But it was the most unique fair I’ve ever seen in my life. they were handicap people around me and they were working. I’ve never seen handicapped people in such density working for something collectively. I really got motivated seeing them work so hard and they were also getting rewarded accordingly. What I think is that handicap people should also get equal chances in all walks of life. I know there are limitations with handicap people, but it’s not them who made them limited. Once again. I would like to appreciate the government of India for such a great initiative.

And then there was this guy on wheelchair selling from Jammu and Kashmir state of India. Another thing that was really done great was they hosted this fair in one of the most popular area of Delhi NCR that is India Gate. It’s also good because there’s a lot of space available around India Gate to host fairs and it doesn’t get crowded so easily, so it could host a lot of gathering at once.

The side part of India Gate was also visible from the fair. We were on the right side of the fair first, where the handicrafts were being sold. India Gate was looking just great from there as you can see in the photograph below.

After moving a little further with came near to the centre stage that was made there for posting cultural events. Every night, there was a special guest who was performing every night there and the list was pasted in the first photograph. In my post. There were many popular singers who are coming to perform for free. Apart from that there were many school competition that were going on throughout the day there and the stage was never empty. While we were there. We saw a performance of specially abled students there, and we really got inspired from them.

After watching the competition, we got a little hungry and it was not time to go to the food court area of the fair for that we need to cross India Gate through these beautiful fountains that were built around it to reach the central part from where the both part of the fair were divided.

It really was a good day to roam around in such way near India Gate and the photographer is my favourite of the day. The sun was shining bright in the sky and the fountains in the garden near India Gate were reflecting it. It was really a special vibe just being there.

After crossing this beautiful fountain, where is the central part of the fair, where there were arrows pointed in different directions towards the different parts of the fair. Now we wanted to go to the food court area and as soon as when we entered the food court area, we saw some carts for specially abled people parked there in the front.

Then we came across this beautiful stall called Mitti, and we had a softy there. We got to know that this initiative got the President award for employing handicap people and working experimentally with them to provide them full-time employment. They work in association with normal people and they help them to fulfil their dreams. For more details, you can read the holding below and also see the pictures with the President of India. I was really stunned to see such initiatives rising in India.

The softy was also very delicious. We had a good time having it and now it was time to have something else for us distance, I saw a person selling Bhelpuri. I didn’t had for a long time so I wanted to try that.

I skipped a lot of food stalls for Bhelpuri because I was craving Bhelpuri at that time. There were many other stalls to from different parts of the country. In short. There was flavour of all the parts of India there and that too made by specially abled people where else can you find such a fair in the world??? ?

Here we were right in front of the Bhelpuri stall he asked the person selling Bhelpuri to make the best Bhelpuri he could ever make and we couldn’t have asked for anything more. The Bhelpuri was really delicious, and we had a great time having it after having our food, it was time to get back to the India Gate and explore a different area of Delhi now.

While getting back to the India Gate, I saw this person who was coming from the washroom. He didn’t had a leg! There were many such people all around us but this particular person got my attention. He was working really hard to move back to his shop. I guess he was working in the Rajasthani shop. I considered myself lucky that I had everything and my body was fine. I really felt gratefulness from inside after seeing the struggles of all these handicap people. These handicap people always have my support and I consider them really strong forward what they are doing.

That’s all for today.

Thanks for passing by!!!

Peace ☮️

#winterchallenge #traveldigest #worldmappin