Two months ago, Papia Ghosal was an entrepreneur and an Instagram star, known as the “Russian Didi” who ran her tea shop, called Te Amo. Now she is in debt, unsure about her future.
Around four months ago, Ghosal, 28, a resident of Andul in Howrah district, around 18km from Kolkata, set up a tea stall on National Highway 16 at Ankurhati, also in Howrah.
Ghosal, an alumna of Kolkata’s Asutosh College who had worked a couple of corporate jobs and a few modelling gigs, invested around Rs 60,000 for the shop from her savings.
She chose Ankurhati because the area is developing fast. She was helped by a local club.
National Highway 16, like most highways, is lined with shops on both sides. Many of them are eateries, big and small. The legality of these shops is questionable. What is unquestionable is the role of local clubs in this semi-formal micro economy.
“I was done working for others and wanted to do something on my own. I thought I would open a tea stall and eventually turn it into a cafe, serving exotic food,” she said. “I wanted to start something new, create a brand of my own.”
She succeeded beyond her expectations. A young, good-looking girl running her chai shop on the highway attracted attention. Word got around fast.
There would be selfies and video interviews almost everyday, with many people going ‘live’ from the shop. Ghosal would oblige the customers with her story of a young woman wanting to strike out on her own as an entrepreneur.
“The local people were the first to make videos, and then the food vloggers started to come. I initially could not gauge the scale of it,” she said.
She soon got a call from the television show Didi No. 1, hosted by TV personality-turned-Trinamul MP from Hooghly, Rachna Banerjee.
“The entire experience gave me enthusiasm and was positive for me,” shared Ghosal.
Ghosal’s shop would create traffic snarls as social media “influencers” from Howrah and beyond – Kolkata included – thronged her shop. It became a hangout spot for people of diverse age groups and backgrounds.
And she began to be known as “Russian Didi”.
“Calling me Russian Didi did not entirely stem from a negative thought process,” Ghosal said. “A few local people had told me that they found similarities because I was smart and modern. Some said it in a negative way too. I never asked them why they called me so, fearing the answer could be something disrespectful.”
A well-dressed woman serving tea was a headturner.
“Many people who would be visiting the shop would say things like —- chaa’er daam 6 taka dekhar jonyo aro 1 taka [Rs 6 for the tea, Re 1 to watch] — because I had priced the tea at Rs 7 instead of Rs 6 like other places,” she said.
“I used to keep to myself,” she said. “I would focus on my business. I would not respond to the name they gave me [Russian Didi], the slang or double-meaning statements they would hurl, or anything else that was happening around me. My only goal was to build my brand and make it bigger and better.”
It all came crashing down on December 4, 2024. Late in the evening, Ghosal received a phone call from a fellow shop owner informing her that local residents had shut down her shop. There was a notice on the closed shutter of the shop.
“I was panicking,” Ghosal said. “I kept making frantic calls to various members of the local club, but no one took my calls or returned them.”
The notice, still on the shutter of the shop, says the shop has been closed for an indefinite period – in brackets it says, “forever” – by the Prasastha Grambashi Brinda (loosely translated,: the villagers of Prasastha).
The shop falls under the purview of the Prasastha village.
Although it was initially rumoured that the shop was shut down by a fatwa – Ankurhati’s population, according to the 2011 Census data, is 68.60 per cent Muslim and 29.1 per cent Hindu – the local mosque’s imam spoke to us and denied any involvement.
Several elderly residents said they found the closing of the shop unfair. They pointed out that although the poster reads “by the villagers of Prasastha”, there was no townhall meeting.
Local residents had differing opinions on why Te Amo was shut. But one thing most – other shopkeepers, traffic policemen, civic police, toto drivers, local club members and residents – agreed on is that the shop had become a hindrance for the local people.
“There would be long traffic queues building up because of the cars and bikes in front of the tea stall,” said a local civic volunteer, requesting anonymity.
The service road running in front of the shop connects the petrol pump and the main lane leading to the Prasastha village. The long line of bikes and cars in front Te Amo made it difficult for the residents to use the service road. A local resident shared, “from evening till late in the night, the entire road was filled with cars and bikes, making it impossible to use”.
Ghosal would often be summoned by the club members during peak business hours to discuss the traffic that her shop was causing.
“The discussion would be futile,” she said, “No solution ever came out of them, but I would lose money because customers would have tea and wade off not paying since I was not at the shop.”
In Ankurhati, another common refrain is that Ghosal would dress “inappropriately”. Prasastha is not a village per se. It has automobile showrooms, hotels, bakeries, cafes and biryani shops, and young women dressed in western outfits and riding scooters.
But an attractive woman serving chai was a problem.
“She would come in body-hugging t-shirts, wear denims and sleeveless kurtas,” was something we heard from several local residents.
“She used to wear tight clothes. The way she sat was also not right,” was another opinion with many takers.
“Mostly men would come from far and wide. Her tea was below average,” said one woman..
Ghosal shrugged off the insinuations: “Do we wear Indian attire all the time?”
Ghosal is young. She speaks English. Her Bengali is laced with Hindi. She wears a moonglass. Her fashion choices are contemporary. She wears red lipstick, sits cross legged. She is active on social media.
She has 34,700 followers on Instagram, and that was also part of the “problem”.
“A club member commented on the content on my Instagram profile,” recalled Ghosal. “Her Instagram profile is attracting outlaws and polluting the social fabric of the place, they would say.”
Ghosal cannot even go to her shop.
“The two boys whom I had hired went to Te Amo recently to clean the stall and found out that the electric supply had been cut off,” she said.
“I cannot agree to not visiting my own business. I want to respectfully open my shop for a day, the notice has to be removed, and I will close my shop on my own and move on,” she said.
She is unemployed, in debt and dependent on her married sister who works as a tuition teacher.
Ghosal, who lost both her parents, is unmarried. She does not have enough to start something new yet. But, she dreams of reopening her brand in a new place.
Ghosal has filed an FIR and got legal help, but the local police washed their hands of the case.
When we visited the Domjur police station that Ankurhati falls under, the policemen refused to speak. In earlier published reports, unnamed police officials have been quoted saying Te Amo is on government land, ergo illegal.
But other shops continue to do brisk business.
Assistant sub-inspector Dibyendu Mondal, who was formerly with the Domjur police station, told The Telegraph Online: “Even after filing the FIR and waiting for two days and calling her [Ghosal], she did not come to the police station and sign it.”
The police station received no complaints from the local residents about disturbances caused by Te Amo or Ghosal, according to Mondal.
He was unsure if officers higher up received any complaints.
“I went to the police station after two or three days and signed it,” Ghosal said. “I have the copy of the FIR.”
She said she knew trouble was brewing when the local club’s demand for money became persistent. She said that when she started her shop, she was to pay Rs 3,000 as a monthly fee along with Rs 40,000 as a one-time donation to the local club that helped her.
“When I said I was unable to pay Rs 40,000 up front and would do so after the business picked some pace, they agreed to it,” she said.
When she became famous, the calls for the money amped up, she said. Then came the phone call on December 4.
In the new year, Ghosal has no savings, only regrets. “Almost everyone will sip tea during the winter,” she said. “Jealousy took away my business.”