‘Aditi’s corner’ located in Bhoomi Mall, CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai may look like any other eatery. However, what makes this eatery unique is the young girl seated behind the counter, busy taking down lunch orders and neatly jotting these down in the record book. There is a smile on her face as she simultaneously greets customers and hands them over the menu card which clearly says, ‘Working hard is the key for living a good life but you can’t work on empty stomach’.
She is 22 year old Aditi Verma, the owner of the eatery, suffering from Down Syndrome by birth. But this is, in no way, affecting her dynamism or passion for independently running her small eatery.
“I always loved cooking and used to surprise my mom with dishes which I used to prepare watching from you tube,” says Aditi with a smile. Realising her passion for cooking and desiring her to become self reliant and independent, Aditi’s parents and younger brother gifted her with this eatery on 1st January last year and within the third month itself, Aditi with her grit, determination and hard work, had achieved breakeven. Since then there has been no looking back.
Childhood
Aditi, the first child of Verma family, was born with Down syndrome in 1994 and needleless to say the parents were devastated. Things became worse, when at the age of two and half years, Aditi was diagnosed with hole in her heart and had to undergo surgery in Escorts Hospital, Delhi.
“In the beginning, we were clueless as to what we should do as we saw many challenges that her disability presented socially,” says Reena Verma, Aditi’s mother.
However, on the advise of the doctors, the parents decided to motivate Aditi to lead as normal as life as possible. “We never treated Aditi differently from her younger brother and encouraged her to pursue her dreams,” says father, Mr. Amit Verma.
Aditi was sent to a special school ‘Vatsalay’ in Jaipur where the family stayed till 2001, later to ‘Ankush Vidyalaya’, Pune till 2005 and finally to Swami Brahmanand Pratishthan, Belapur. Aditi was a bright student and Maths was her favorite. She won the ‘Best Student Award’ in 2010 for her overall performance. Besides academics, Aditi loved dancing and even dramatics and in 2012 in an inter-school competition she won the ‘Best Actress Award’.
Love for cooking
After completing her studies in 2015, the parents were anxious to make Aditi self reliant and economically independent. She started helping her father by doing data entry job in his business on logistics in the Bhoomi Mall. “She was very competent and handled her work efficiently,” says her father, but Aditi’s inclination was towards cooking. “She used to keenly observe the boy who used to deliver teas in the offices,” says her mother, Mrs. Reena. “Besides Aditi would always love to dole out new dishes for us and could be seen watching cookery shows or you tubes on cooking during her free time,” she adds. This made the parents decide to start an eatery for her.
Snack corner
What started with a small snack corner serving tea, coffee, soup, cold drinks along with Sandwiches, Maggi, Egg preparations etc. today also serves home-made lunch. Aditi has two supporting staff- Sardar Paramjit Uncle, who takes care of cooking at the café and Ram, the delivery boy, who carries out the deliveries of orders at the various offices located in the mall. “Every day we have a different menu for lunch and the bhaiyas and didi in the offices just love it,” says Aditi with a smile.
Another specialty of this snack corner is the chocolates and the cupcakes which are prepared by Aditi herself. “All the customers love my chocolates and cupcakes and take these homes. I love to experiment with my chocolates and try to make a variety. So far all of these have been a big hit with the customers,” says Aditi.
Representative of SAFI, Maharashtra
In the capacity of entrepreneur, Aditi represented Maharashtra in the Self Advocates Forum of India (SAFI) held in Bangalore on 9th December, 2016. “I even gave a lecture on my initiative and my desire to expand it more,” says Aditi happily. She has been nominated as representative of Maharashtra for SAFI.
Aditi and her family hope that her example may inspire many others to overcome their disabilities and pursue their dreams.
