Bengal woman, 70, battles hardship alone to run crumbling eatery for 30 years

A 70-year-old woman continues to run her crumbling roadside eatery despite financial struggles after lockdown. Through a now-viral Instagram video, the community is called upon to help restore her shop and livelihood.

A woman shared the story of a quiet lifetime of labour unfolding inside an elderly woman's crumbling roadside eatery in Bengal, where survival, memory, and dignity continued to simmer in the same kitchen.

Aradhana Chatterjee, who refers to herself as a storyteller, posted the video on Instagram with the caption: “We will be giving this little shop a makeover since this is where she stays and runs her business from. Let us all come together and make this happen. So that she can have the minimum number of customers to sustain herself and the shop.”

In the video, Chatterjee introduces 70-year-old Deepali Ghosh, explaining that the small rice hotel has been her only source of income for nearly three decades following her husband’s death.

The visuals move through snippets of Ghosh’s daily routine, from buying provisions, cooking simple rice meals, washing utensils, to carefully arranging the modest space, as each task is performed entirely on her own.

“Today, she barely has five customers,” she says while the camera lingers on smoke-stained walls, ageing utensils, cluttered shelves, and a fragile roof overhead. In one corner lies a narrow, worn-out plywood plank where Ghosh sleeps at night, turning the shop into both workplace and home.

Speaking about her circumstances, Ghosh then continues, “I have to keep working to manage my food and medicines,” adding that her hearing has weakened with age, but she continues nonetheless.