For several years, AJ Block has hosted a popular event in which children set up stalls to sell home-made food. This year, the organisers recognised that not everyone enjoys cooking and so opened doors for them to sell anything they wanted. The idea was to plant the seed of entrepreneurship in them.
The stalls sold everything from clips to crochets and kurtis. “I want to be an English professor, but an event like this offers us great exposure even for me. We interact with many people and improve our communication skills,” said Trishna Dey, a college student selling crochet items.
Supriyo Saha ran a games stall. “I know how to cook, but it was a business decision to put up a games stall. There are many food stalls but no competition in games,” reasoned the Class IX student, who invited guests to fold paper planes and throw them into hula hoops. “I also wanted to show that one can have fun with the simplest things. I aspire to launch a business to clean the ocean someday, but I need to study hard for that. I know Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are college dropouts, but they continued non-traditional learning, so there’s no excuse to not study.”
A long queue waited at Sharaanya Basu Malik’s tattoo stall, mostly of fellow stallholders taking a break. “You left our stall unattended? What if our stuff gets stolen?” asked Sourjyo Saha of the hair accessory stall when he saw most of his mates standing behind him. A nervous Arya Das dashed back to check on their ware while Arya Gupta, of Class V, asked Sourjyo to calm down. “Chill! I’ve left my sister in charge,” she said. The sister was Arna, all of eight, who was manning the counter alone.
Hunger pangs
Most of the stalls offered snacks. Judhajit Chakraborty sold, among other items, Roshun Pauruti. “It’s good old garlic bread, but I have to advertise my product so it cuts through the clutter,” the boy smiled.
Kids show accessories to visitors
Ayushman Sarkar, with sister Anushka, offered dahi vada. “Initially, my mother doubted if I could handle cash transactions,” said Ayushman. “But I’m in Class IV and shop at BJ Market myself for sweets and stationery, so am keeping track of money just fine.”
Ujjesa Barman sold Nizam-style Chicken and Jeera Rice, cooked by her elder sister Esha. “I want to study international relations, but then go into business,” said the Class X student. “My father runs the Scone food joint in our block, so we knew he could guide us if we set up a food stall today.”
Siblings Varnika, Priyanshi, and Shashwat Patwari served snacks such as dhoklas, but when the chief guests visited their table, little Shashwat was busy gobbling ice cream he had bought from a neighbouring stall!
The chief guests were Arijit Hajra, of Think Again Lab, creators of semi-humanoid robots, and Pallab Ghosh, who runs the Gappu musical instrument company. “In our field, we design colours and patterns meant to attract children to the screen, so we can’t blame them for getting addicted to phones; up to a certain age, kids don’t understand the word ‘no’. If you tell them to put the phone away, they’ll do the opposite. As adults, we should offer them fun alternatives like this. Cook with them! I’m also pleased to see gender stereotypes being broken at this fair. Many boys have set up food stalls, and they too should know this life skill,” said Hajra.
Ghosh added: “In our time, parents only wanted us to become doctors or engineers, but I’ll be delighted if today’s stallholders become entrepreneurs. I would love to support them.”
The event was the brainchild of resident Papiya Chakraborty, whose goal was to spark the entrepreneurial bug in kids. “In Mumbai, kids as young as four are sent to shop alone, but in Bengal, parents lack trust. We must allow children to fail so that they can succeed the next time. We must also let them be independent and take risks. They are born clever, but overprotective parenting crushes their potential,” said the wellness coach, who also runs a boutique. “Interfaces such as these teach youth to gain confidence and sell themselves.”
