KOLKATA: Discovery of a homeless IIT Kharagpur alumna selling photographs for a living on the streets of Seattle in the United States has caused a massive outrage on the social media, with Indians demanding immediate intervention of the Ministry of External Affairs.
The issue came to fore when two Indians Prabhat Page and Peeyush Gupta released a video of 58-year-old Jayasri Talapatra Gill, a 1991 batch Mathematical Engineering graduate from IIT Kharagpur, selling photographs in Bellevue area of Seattle for a living.
In the video, Jayasri T Gill narrates her ordeal saying: “I am a software engineer with specialisation in solution architecture with more than 15 years of experience in HCL, Cognizant, Motorola, TCS and other firms in California, San Francisco and Connecticut in the US but presently I sell photographs for a living. I was married but now I’m separated. I have relatives in Kolkata but they are not answering my calls.”
She also added that she has a soft copy of her resume and anyone can call at +1-206-304-6137 for job offers.
The video has been viewed by more than 1 lakh people and has been shared over 900 times on social media since it was uploaded on January 18.
Speaking to The New Indian Express through Messenger app, Prabhat Page narrated his encounter with Gill saying: “At first, I was intrigued to see a fellow Indian selling photographs but it took me nearly two weeks to make her comfortable to share her story with me. She lived the American dream until she got separated from her husband in 2014. She also became broke and jobless during that time and was mentally stressed. But, she still has high self-esteem and lives in a motel shunning homeless shelter.”
A look at Gill’s Facebook profile could give a peek into the mental distress she has been living through. She has uploaded photographs of scribbles over issues concerning her life, photographs of her husband Brian Sean Gill in his youth and of her sister Maitreyi Talapatra.
When contacted, Maitreyi Talapatra, who is a central government employee and resident of Mukundapur area of Kolkata, claimed that she knew nothing about her elder sister’s ordeal.
“I am shocked to see this video. I will contact the Indian Embassy in Washington and urge them to take action to bring my sister back to India,” she said.