An American tourist and vlogger, Chris Rodriguez, was walking through a food street in South Mumbai when he met a local shoe polisher. Identified as Babu, he greeted Chris with a warm smile and offered to clean and polish his white shoes.
They took a brief walk where Chris struck up a conversation with Babu. “You sure you can clean my shoe? What’s your name? My name is Chris and nice to meet you, brother”, the tourist said.
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Tourist’s vlog with shoe polish wala
Chris saw the man carrying a red bag with him and asked whether Babu carried all his shoe cleaning equipment in it. “Yeah man. I’ve been here since six months. I came here (from Jaipur) looking for job but very difficult to find job because I live on the streets. I’m doing shoe shining and making 30-40 rupees every day”, he replied.
The video then showed Babu at work. He took the shoes, one after another, in his hands and started cleaning them. He used a white polish to give them a magical finish, leaving Chris impressed.
“Thank you brother. Perfect, man”, Chris said expressing gratitude to the shoe polisher.
₹2,000 offered, but why?
But the video didn’t end there. When asked about his charge, Babu simply replied, “₹10, sir”. However, he then put forth a request to Chris, a little hesitantly. He explained that he needed a shoe box for his business but couldn’t afford one. “Could you help me?” he asked.
Moved by his words and good work, Chris decided to do more than just pay for the shoe polish.
He handed Babu ₹2,000 and asked him to promise about using the money to get himself the shoe box. Chris mentioned that he would return the next day to see if Babu had truly invested in a shoe box or if this was just another trick for extra money.
Here’s what happened later
Sadly, the story didn’t end on a positive note. When Chris returned the next day, he realised his kindness, which could have helped improve Babu’s livelihood, had been misused. Babu was there, but with no shoe box in sight.
“Saw him the day after and he came up with some lame excuse then a coconut vendor said he does this to everyone… its his job”, Chris added while sharing the video on Instagram.
