Hyderabad: What Tarun Gidwani does is maybe downright silly or maybe the most selfless project any man has attempted.
Every day, the 25-year-old goes out with a sign, that reads you’re perfect, and stands out in a corner of market place, at bus stands and pretty much wherever there’s space. On weekends, he stands for five to six hours with that signboard.
Gidwani is now in Pune but did the very same thing last year in Hyderabad — around the Hitec city area. Pune though, is worshipping the man on Facebook. For Gidwani, it has been an “experience”.
Born and brought up in Hyderabad, it was an “urge to spread a smile” that made him and friend Benjamin start off this daily ritual, where they would just stand out in the streets with just a signboard, with a message. According to Gidwani, that’s a mirror they’ve been holding.
The Hyderabadi recently moved to Pune to work with a law firm but what didn’t change was the need to make others smile. “We started off with various boards like, ‘You are beautiful’, but then we settled with, ‘You are perfect’,” says Gidwani.
So, for the past one month, Tarun has been visiting various areas with his signboard and the reaction has been mixed. “In Hyderabad, one person said ‘Oh my God, no one has ever told me that’; someone in Pune said, ‘Nobody but God is perfect’. It has been a beautiful experience so far. For example, a lady recently came up to me and started crying. It was such a moving experience that even I had tears in my eyes. And the other day, after I had been standing for about seven hours, without food, a group of youngsters came up to me with cookies and so many other things. I was really overwhelmed,” he adds.
Strangely, Gidwani has no particular aim for this ‘stand-alone’ project. “When I started, it was more of a spiritual agenda. Now, it’s something I do out of my free-will.”
Gidwani, who studied in Aurora Degree College, Hyderabad, and then went on to study in the UK, plans to do this wherever he goes. “I don’t know what is better now, a stranger with a message that makes you happy or someone you have heard about and then seeing him on the road. But as long as I’m bringing smiles, it’s good.”
