Your Feel-Good Story of the Day: 83 year old Shila Ghosh is hunched with age but her spirit is feisty. Every day, she changes two buses and finds her way from the outskirts of Calcutta to the busy Exide crossing on Chowringhee Road. There, she sells home made chips for an average of $3 in earnings each day.
24 year old college student Sufia Khatoon watched from across the street. Wanting to do something, she posted her observations on Facebook. Soon, she had mobilized a small group who gave the octogenarian a small cash donation, a shawl, and some warm wishes. They even bought her entire stock of chips for the day! Shila Ghosh is thrilled, but insists that she can continue to earn a living. Meanwhile, the gesture has rallied more young people to come together to make a difference.
Watch Shila in this short clip: Kolkata: Student helps woman raise sales through Facebook
Read her story here: http://tiny.cc/a2kthw
Facebook Page: Our World, Our Initiative.
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Awesome gesture!
Nice to know that most people are still human.
Proof that it doesn’t take much to make a positive difference. Every little bit counts. 🙂
Nice to see young people using social networks to do little things of great value 🙂
IBNLive should have provided the facebook page link in their youtube video description. thanks for sharing Rajini Rao
The gold chips of simple kindness are worth infinitely more than the blue chips of the stock-exchange.
Prashanth Akunuri , here is the FB link: https://www.facebook.com/OurWorldOurInitiative
thanks Rajini Rao I am still exploring and wondering if social networks can help partly in “solving” India’s complex problems. I hope more people get involved in future times.
Good luck, Prashanth Akunuri . G+ is a great community and you can try your ideas out here.
Thank you. yes It’s true. Google+ is really such a great community, without which we would not come across such great stories and other social projects.
Ronald Stepp , I’d have to dig around a bit to find what a street vendor makes. Very little, is the short answer! A search only gives me salaries of techies, engineers and managers, which are all orders of magnitude more than what this little lady earns. As you can imagine, there is huge disparity between different economic strata in India (for that matter, in other countries as well).
In my opinion, we cannot compare street vendors’ pay with the average pay for that area at all, if that’s what you wanted to do Ronald Stepp because street vendors make way too little.
I would it if you would share this on the The Official Fostering Humanity Page These stories are exactly what I’m looking for.
Paulissa Kipp , I just circled the page so it is easier to share now. Feel free to share this and let me know if I can help. Cheers!
That’s a nice story to balance out the shitty story I just read.
http://goo.gl/EX9I3 Shame on the people at United.
At least in that corner of the world.
Good in action.
But Ms. Rajini Rao the real problem in our nation is the lack of any social security. It is really a shame upon the nation with second largest young population that an eighty four year old woman has to work so hard to earn a living.
This was the perfect anti-dote to reading the article Chad Haney shared about the military vet and his dog. Thanks for sharing this sweet story 🙂
This is actually something i really do hope to see in the future. Much better that the younger generations do this sort of thing than waste their type partying & drinking. Least helping out those in need from time to time just as a nice gesture than a publicity stunt is great! I have a bit of hope for the future! 🙂
Thanks a lot for sharing Rajini Rao !
Hi Feisal Kamil , yes..so thanks for sending candidates our way. Everyone should remember to tag their science-y posts so we can fill the search stream with science goodness 🙂
I’m sure the breaking fast meal was delicious! Anything special?
Yum. This reminds me to get some breakfast together too.
So inspiring! :)))
Hi Kawthar AL ABDALLA ! My poor family, Feisal Kamil 😀
Hey! 🙂 Rajini Rao
Great gesture, perhaps Shila’s way of keeping active.
I agree, Danny Thesan . An active mind and body are key to aging well.
Inspiring post 🙂
Thank you Rajini Rao for this wonderful story that strengthen my belief in the eternal goodness of the human race 🙂
Inspiring…but don’t u think that she should retire now….60 is the age determined by govt….last week Amir khan in his show Satyamev Jayate told about the problems faced by the old aged in India…it is one of a few cases where the anguish of the old has met a happy ending… 🙂 🙂
Feisal Kamil I meant retirement from the hard labor….there is an age limit for every thing…
Good morning, Feisal Kamil 🙂 Same with my dad. He finally ran out of gratis work to do about a decade ago, and now he is really bored at 85.
Sudhanshu Pathania , in this case, she needs the money. Her son passed away and she wants to bring her share of earnings to the family.
yup Rajini Rao I’ve read the news article….her grand kid is working….all I’m saying that there could be an alternative to selling chips on the road side….
Thanks for posting this.
Great story. Very inspiring.
And now for something completely different to sweeten a morose Monday: the MANGO, but first I must digress:
It was not meant to be a recipe for disaster, but my tiny apartment was awash in saliva after it arrived, so I’ll try to return the favor, if not the flavor:
Fiji is the only place I’ve ever found where I truly feel at home. The indo-Fijians there were originally brought in as indentured laborers by the colonial power. Denied the right to own land, they made their mark in commerce, instead, to become despised as Fiji’s “Jews”
I’m not sure but I don’t think the mango tree is a native species. It was probably introduced by the indo-Fijians, who now have their own dynamic, hybrid culture, where not even the rigid Indian caste system could withstand the laid-back Melanesian lifestyle. Although they now outnumber the indigenous Fijians, there has been surprisingly little bloodshed. Nothing is ever taken really seriously in Fiji, which is one of the reasons I love the people and the place. Fijian mangoes mellowed too under the influence of south Pacific enzymes. But now I’m straying heedlessly into science again and can expect to be unseated from my perch any time soon; but please, before you rise to the occasion, pluck a Fijian mango first.
The Indians left their mark in the Fijian language, too, where the Fijian word for “dog”: Koli is derived from “Coolie”. Refusing to accept this linguistic calumny, the indo-Fijians responded in scabrous kind with “Kai jungli” =jungle bunny.
Mangoes are always welcome, any day of the week John Condliffe . Indians were taken as indentured labor in parts of the Caribbean as well (Trinidad, for example), and Africa. I was told there were class distinctions between indoor servants (Indians) and outdoor labor (Africans).
Did you miss my mango post? Your information would have been enjoyed by the commentators there!
https://plus.google.com/u/0/114601143134471609087/posts/eHPC37SaHph
maybe you speak some hindi
Yes, I do gill jimmy . Do you have a comment on the topic of the post?
Rajini Rao I’m deeply ashamed (see the sackcloth’s there again), me – an inveterate mango junkey – I missed it!
In my defence, I can only say: there are so many damned incarnations to deal with, I am no longer sure whether it’s my feathers, fur or vanity getting ruffled.
Multiple personalities can complicate writing, as the saying goes, “Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors”. How to Write Good: http://goo.gl/SHOq
Rajini Rao You gave me the last, and by far the best laugh of the day. Sharing is impossible without a common sense of humor. Careful with that bull,Whatever you do, don’t take it by any other appendage!
nice couragesous thing
Dear Raajini thankyou for writing the entire story when most people are posting and riposting what was covered instead of telling the entire tale…keep smiling…best wishes sufia owoi