Arzan Chacha is an elderly storekeeper on Islamia College University campus, who has been selling books, stationery and uniforms for the last more than four decades despite high inflation, wants shopkeepers to provide books at subsidised rate to poor students.
Syed Badshah, a resident of Lakki Marwat, not literate himself had determined to set up a book and stationery store some 40 years ago at Islamia College Peshawar (ICP) to help students hailing from lower middle class.
After retirement from army in a lower rank, he took up the job to look after hostels of students at ICP. Soon he observed that book dealers on the campus would charge students exorbitantly for the books, notebooks and uniforms. He walked up to then high officials to allow him to set up a store on the campus where things would be available to poor students at subsidised rates.
Students from in and around the campus swarmed his bookshop to get textbooks, guides and stationery items at such a low price that they tagged Syed Badshah as ‘Arzaan Chacha’ (subsidised uncle). The students passed out three decades ago send out their children to his store where the grey-beard and humble man not only sells out things at low prices but also gifts a pencil or two free of cost to them.
