Sweet ending: netizens help find elderly woman selling chocolates on Mumbai’s trains

NGO locates her, but she declines financial support

A concerted effort by netizens has helped an NGO find an elderly woman whose video of earning a livelihood by selling chocolates on Mumbai’s busy local trains went viral last week. The video of the woman, dressed in a salwar kameez, had caught the eyes of netizens and several people began to search for her in earnest.

Even Swati Maliwal, the chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, had shared the video on social media and urged everyone to buy chocolates from her and support thousands of people like her who were working hard to earn a living.

Harteerath Singh Ahluwalia of the Hemkunt Foundation sought help on social media to locate the elderly woman. “Hi, #Mumbai folks, trying to find “Dadi Ji” who’s seen earning her livelihood on a train. Would want to help her out and make things a bit more comfortable for her – randomly came across this reel on Instagram but no luck so far,” Mr. Ahluwalia said in a tweet.

Soon after he had posted the message and the video on various online platforms, several Bollywood celebrities and social media influencers urged their followers to help Mr. Ahluwalia in his search.

“A large number of people then started commenting on our posts that they had spotted the woman on trains and at different stations. We narrowed down the search, deployed teams at select stations, and finally located her,” he said.

They succeeded in tracing her earlier this week. The team members met her on a local train and offered her financial help.

However, the woman, who later identified herself as Vajji, politely declined the offer and said she would continue to sell chocolates. “After much effort, when we finally found her today, to our sheer surprise, Dadij i declined any monetary help. We then bought all the chocolates she had,” he said.