A viral video made me question, should I feel good?

It You might think it is normal to help people, especially the elderly, selling goods on the street in the sun.

Giving money directly feels uncomfortable. Buying from them feels better. Fairer, somehow.

I used to believe that too – until Ginger asked me….

The Monday Bazaar

The Monday bazaar is famous for its variety. Women’s kurtis hang in long colourful rows. Makeup stalls crowd every corner. And then there is the flower lane.

That day, the lane was tighter than usual. It was Navratri, and people were buying flowers and gajras to offer Devi Mata. Vendors called out from both sides. Buyers pushed through slowly, holding their purchases close.

I was a regular, so I knew exactly where to go. I held Ginger’s hand and made our way through the crowd until I reached the old woman sitting on a sheet of plastic, gajras arranged neatly in front of her.

We bought from her and then turned back, pressing through the lane where there was barely room to breathe.

When we finally stepped out, Ginger gave me a look. 

“There were gajra sellers right at the entrance. Why did you take us into that suffocating lane?”

I smiled and said, “I wanted to support her. Did you see her? She is old, barely able to stand, and she still walks so far every day just to sell her gajras.”

Ginger was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, “Don’t get inspired by every viral reel you see.”

The viral reel story

A few months ago, a short video spread widely on social media. An old man stood at a traffic signal with a bunch of pens. When someone tried to give him money, he refused. 'He was not begging,' he said. He was selling.

People responded warmly. Comments praised his self-respect. Some went back and bought more pens than they needed. Buying felt better than giving. It felt earned. It felt fair.

You’re not buying gajras. The gajra is only there to make the exchange feel complete.

You feel you did something right. The seller receives cash without asking. The moment closes cleanly.

“What gets missed,” Ginger said, “is the harder question.

Why is this the best option available to her?”

I had no answer.

The Comfortable Lie We Tell Ourselves

When we buy instead of give, we feel like participants in a fair exchange. We walk away clean. The transaction is complete.

But fairness assumes choice. It assumes the seller is there because she wants to be, because this is one good option

among several. In most cases, it is the only option left after every other door closed.

The pen seller at the traffic signal, the gajra seller on the plastic sheet, the child selling flags outside the temple — they are not symbols of hustle culture.

They are indicators.

Like a warning light on a dashboard. The light is not the problem. It is telling you something else is wrong.

When we praise the indicator and ignore the dashboard, we feel good and nothing changes.

When need is dressed as effort, the larger problem quietly fades.

Buying gajras from an old woman on a hot afternoon does not create better work for her. It does not build housing, or healthcare, or a support system she can count on. It makes the situation easier to witness. The situation itself stays the same.

The role of the individual is to care.

The role of the state is to make these exchanges unnecessary.

I still buy from her every Monday. I probably always will.

But now I hold the question alongside the gajra.

Why is this the best option available?

And more importantly — who is responsible for making sure it isn’t?

We like to believe that individual kindness, compounded across millions of people, will eventually add up to change. That if enough of us buy from the right stalls, choose the right sellers, and share the right videos, the problem will slowly dissolve.

It won’t.

Not because kindness is wrong.

But because kindness was never designed to do the job we are quietly asking it to do.

An old woman walking kilometres in the summer heat to sit on a plastic sheet and sell gajras for ten rupees is not a story about her resilience. It is a story about what was never made available to her.

No pension. No social security. No healthcare she could afford. No daughter or son who could support her — perhaps because they are surviving their own version of the same story.

We see the effort and call it dignity.

But dignity should not require this much effort just to exist.

So Who Is Actually Responsible?

The honest answer is…it is layered. And each layer has been very good at pointing to the next one.

The individual says…..I am just one person, what can I do?

The community says….we donate, we organise drives, we share posts.

The government says….here are schemes, there are subsidies, there are committees.

And the old woman keeps walking to the bazaar every Monday.

The responsibility does not belong to one layer. But it is not equal either. Individual kindness can soften a moment. Only systemic change can end the condition.

The state holds the most power and therefore the most responsibility.

Not charity. Policy.

The difference between the two is the difference between giving someone an umbrella and fixing the roof.

What Conclusive Change Actually Looks Like

There are many well-planned and implemented sets of examples available in Globe. Here are a few glimpses of what could be possible in our land.

Universal social protection for the elderly. An old woman should not have to sell anything to survive past sixty. A basic pension, indexed to cost of living, is not charity. It is a society deciding that age alone is not grounds for abandonment.

Formalising informal labour. Street vendors, daily wage workers, domestic workers — they exist in a legal grey zone. Bringing them into formal systems means access to healthcare, credit, legal protection and savings. The Street Vendors Act exists in India. Its implementation is where the intention goes quiet.

Women’s economic safety nets. A large number of elderly women in street trade are widowed, with no inheritance, no property, and no financial identity of their own. Land rights, financial literacy, self-help groups with real capital — these are not soft programmes. They are structural repairs.

Redirecting praise from resilience to rights. The cultural shift matters too. When we stop celebrating survival as inspiration and start recognising it as a policy failure, public pressure changes. Governments respond to what people find unacceptable. Right now, we find it admirable. That is part of the problem.

What You and I Can Still Do

None of this means stop buying the gajra.

Buy it. And mean it.

But hold the question open. Talk about it. Write about it. Vote with it in mind. Support organisations working on urban poverty, women’s land rights, old age policy. Question leaders when schemes exist only on paper.

The gajra seller does not need your guilt. She needs a world where she gets to choose whether she comes to the bazaar on Monday — not a world where she has no other option.

That is the difference between a transaction and justice.

I still hold her hand for a moment when I take the gajra. She smiles, the way people do when they are tired but still showing up.

I smile back.

And I carry the question home with me.

Why is this the best option available?

Until it no longer has to be.

Thank you for reading. Share your thoughts with me