GUWAHATI, Sept 23 - With Durga Puja round the corner, shopping spree has taken over malls and marketplaces in Guwahati by storm.
While most of us prefer to be part of the mad rush in the festive season, busy buying gifts and dresses for ourselves and our near and dear ones, there are a few others who refuse to be self-centric and look beyond.
Dipjyoti Dutta, who came to do his Puja shopping with his wife and two children, came across as one such Good Samaritan, who, instead of following the bandwagon, lent a helping hand to a destitute woman without making it a gimmick.
It was around 4.30 pm on Saturday and the intensity of the rush at Big Bazar located at Bhangagarh was beginning to pick up.
While everyone else chose to ignore a mentally retarded woman with dirt all over her face sitting helplessly on the pavement and muttering to herself near one of the gates of Big Bazar, with hardly any clothes to cover her body, Dutta decided otherwise.
He gave her a new kurti and a pair of leggings, which he had apparently bought for one of his family members.
�She didn�t have enough clothes even to cover her body. I didn�t know how to help her; so I decided to buy her some clothes. She seemed to be pretty young, and mentally retarded,� said Dutta, a resident of Jalukbari.
The woman gleefully accepted the gift and put the dress on with a smile.
Dutta�s gesture, all of a sudden, began to have an infectious effect, with a few people stopping by to offer something or the other to the lady in distress.
