Home 100 sq ft but heart 10,000 sq ft
Seeing a 70-year-old lost and weeping at Andheri station, Padma Buchala didn’t think twice about bringing her back to her tiny home; Padma even made several trips to the police station to help the elderly woman trace her family …GEETA DESAI
How many of us would take an absolute stranger home, especially one who’s old, forlorn and lost at a railway station? We’d bet not many, which makes Vile Parle resident Padma Buchala’s gesture really special. She not only took a frail 70-year-old woman, who was lost at Andheri station due to some confusion, back to her tiny 100 sq ft home, she also went out of her way to help the woman try and trace her relatives.
At 5 pm on Sunday, Padma was returning from Nallasopara after visiting the new house her family was planning to buy. She got off at Andheri to change trains for Vile Parle. At Andheri station, she saw a group of people surrounding an old woman. “A drunk coolie was shouting at the woman and she was weeping from fear. I went to see what was wrong and heard the woman speaking in Telugu, a language I can understand,” she said.
The old woman told Padma that her name was Pottnuru Soramma and that she was lost. She said she had been pushed out of the train by alighting commuters at around noon and had spent five hours at the station wondering where to go and who to ask for help. The only language she knows is Telugu.
She did not know the name of the station from where she had boarded the train with her grandson who was travelling in the gent’s compartment. All she knew was that they had to catch the 3 pm train to Vishakhapatnam.
But having missed the train, she did not even know her grandson’s home address in Mumbai. She had arrived just 10 days ago to see her grand daughter-in-law who is pregnant.
Soramma says her grandson and his wife work for a software firm.
In Padma’s family, her husband Manohar works for a small firm and earns Rs 3,000 per month.
Their tiny home can barely hold their family of four, but not once did Padma hesitate to invite the old lady to share her home.
“I asked her if she could come to my house so that my husband and I could help her. She agreed to come with me,” Padma said.
In the evening, Padma went to the Andheri Government Railway Police chowkie with her brother-in-law Subhash to inform them about Soramma. The police congratulated Padma for her good work and took all the details from Soramma after Padma translated it. Padma’s family was even thinking of sending a telegram to Vishakhapatnam on the basis of the address given by the 70-year-old.
Soramma refuses to look at her predicament as a misfortune. “Padma came like an angel and helped me in this new city. Once I meet my grandson I will go to Shirdi and take Saibaba’s blessings.
Actually, I had planned to go to Shirdi earlier, but could not make it. This is probably his way of ensuring that I visit the shrine. God bless this young lady and her family with prosperity. They have so little yet they went out of their way to help me.”
On Monday, the GRP chowky took Soramma under police escort to their office in Byculla where she can stay till her relatives are traced. But Soramma felt uncomfortable staying under police protection.
She requested police authorities to let her stay with Padma until she is sent back to Vishakhapatnam.
The GRP are planning to send Soramma with a woman constable to her home town.