New Delhi: Until this afternoon, L-6 Kalkaji was a nondescript building in a leafy south-east Delhi neighbourhood from where an NGO was being run.
As evening descended, the world knew that the building housed the office of Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi.
Excitement was palpable in and around the office of Bachpan Bachao Andolan after the news broke. The road leading to the office was chock-a-block with a multitude of OB vans leading to a traffic chaos in an otherwise quiet locality.
Inside the office, a board at the reception read, "BBA total children released - since 1980 - 83,525".
One was greeted by a congratulatory message - "Kailash Sir, Nobel Peace Prize, congrats" scribbled on a white board even as the staff was finding it difficult to cope with an increasing number of queries and requests for 'bytes' by the national and foreign media.
Twenty-four-year-old Suman Kumar, who was rescued by Satyarthi's NGO when he was all of eight working as a domestic help in Bihar, was standing right at the entrance.
"I work as a graphic designer here and I am fully self -sufficient today, all thanks to his exemplary work. He is the reason I could reclaim my childhood," said Suman.
Sudeep, a family friend of Satyarthi, could be seen shouting to the assembled mediapersons not to "create chaos".
"It is just not possible to accommodate everyone's requests at this point of time, because the list is inordinately large," he said.
Inside a makeshift media centre, journalists were furiously typing away reports. Pradeep Kumar Dey, a member of the staff who joined two years ago, was gleaming with joy as he went about distributing sweets among the visitors. "We distributed 10-20 kilograms of laddoo today. I have no time to breathe but not everybody can claim to work under a Nobel awardee," he said.
But many in the neighbourhood could be heard wondering the reason behind all the hullabaloo. Rolling down the window of his car, Devinder Kumar was heard asking, "Kya hua hai idhar?( What has happened here?)."
"Aap nahin jante? Saab ko Nobel mila hain(You don't know? Sir has won the Nobel)," pat came the reply from a visibly proud Pradeep.
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