Shila Ghosh is young at 83.

Shila Ghosh is young at 83. Her fingers don't tire; her eyes don't water, as her grandson helps her put together her day's work. Everyday she travels to Kolkata to sell homemade fries. It was here where she met 24-yr-old student Soofiya Khatoon. She stopped, she tasted her homemade fries and she decided to help. "If you feel like helping, just help. It's high time we say we want to help. I also used to think when I grow up, I will help others but that day that drive was there and I thought today I have to help her somehow and I did it," says Khatoon. Says Shila Ghosh, "I feel like I have found a friend.
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Here’s to the spirit of Calcutta, alive and kicking in the grit of an 83-year-old selling savouries on a pavement, the compassion of a college girl passing by and the response of strangers to a Facebook post for support.

Octogenarian Shila Ghosh changes two buses to reach the Exide crossing on Chowringhee Road from Bally, in Howrah, every afternoon to sell chips on the pavement outside Haldiram till the flow of the homebound-crowd ebbs.Her breadwinner son died of a heart ailment around six months ago and she needs the money — around Rs 150 on an average for an evening’s toil — to supplement her grandson’s meagre earnings from odd jobs.

College girl Sufia Khatoon didn’t know Shila’s story, but would often pause to watch her from a distance and wonder what circumstances might have forced a woman older than her grandmother to spend evenings working.

Sufia felt she needed to do something about it. A Facebook post later, 22 other Samaritans converged on the busy junction around 5.30pm last Friday to surprise Shila with “a small donation”.

Shila, stooping of body but upright of mind, had a bigger surprise for them.“She accepted the Rs 1,600 we had mobilised for her but declined further monetary help. She told us she wanted to earn a living rather than live off donations,” Sufia recalled.

If the group was still willing to help her, Shila said she would rather they set up a kiosk for her. “Aami paari….Bus dhore chole aashi eikhane. Bus-ta barir samne nabiye dyay. Bikri kore chole jaye (I am capable of earning my bread. I come here and return by bus, it drops me in front of my house),” she told Metro.

Last heard, the list of Shila admirers had swelled, each member eager to ease her strain without making her feel she was dependent on anyone.

“We are dealing with someone very strong in the mind. I believe the initiative should not end with donating some money. We need to find a long-term solution to problems faced by people like Shila,” said Sanjay Dutta, a 42-year-old Park Circus businessman.

Amitava Sinha Chaudhury, a 20-year-old college student who had responded to Sufia’s post and turned up at the Exide crossing on Friday, said it would be an insult to Shila if people offered her “alms”.

“Mashi (aunt)’s never-say-die spirit should be respected. We bought almost half her stock of chips that day to help her without making her feel we were doing her a favour,” Amitava said.