A Former English Teacher Was Begging on Chennai's Streets. One Video Changed That.

This story first went viral in September 2023. We're revisiting it because it remains one of the clearest examples of how one person's attention can change a life.

Merlin came to India from Myanmar in 1996, after marrying an Indian man, and settled in Chennai. She had been an English teacher, and for years she also ran tuition classes from home. But after her husband, her son, and her mother-in-law died, she was left with no income and no one to support her. By her own account she had been living on the streets since 2018, and at 81 she was begging near Besant Nagar beach to get through each day.

"Since 2018, I have struggled on the streets for day-to-day activities," she later said.

One conversation

On September 9, 2023, content creator Mohamed Ashik, who posts on Instagram as @abrokecollegekid, came across her near the beach. He had recognised her from an earlier video in which she asked for a blouse because hers was torn, and he brought her a saree and blouse. As they talked, she corrected his pronunciation and told him she had been a teacher.

Ashik filmed their conversation and posted it. The video eventually reached close to 30 million views. Rather than leave it there, he set up an Instagram account for her, @englishwithmerlin, so she could do what she had always done: teach. He proposed making short English lessons together and paying her for each video. The page, which posts basic English conversation phrases and stories for children, gained more than 500,000 followers within about four days. When she was told, she didn't believe it at first. "Really? Promise me, don't lie," she said.

Finding a home

The video also reached people who had known her years earlier. Logu Padmanabhan, known as Shyam, is the son of her former landlord and had attended her tuition classes as a child; the two families had lived side by side from 1996 to 2003. He reached out after seeing the video, and with the help of Dinesh Kumar of the media outlet Behindwoods, tracked her down. Their reunion was recorded and shared widely.

With help from the NGO Uravugal and Dinesh Kumar, Merlin moved into an old-age home in Royapettah, Chennai, where she has a roof and regular meals. Shyam's wife, a medical officer, kept an eye on her health, and his family said they planned to take her into their own home once their new house was finished. Merlin chose the shelter over living with other relatives who were traced. "I am happy and peaceful here," she said at the time.

"I am always a teacher"

People who followed her story sent money, clothes, food, and medicine. But the part that mattered most to Merlin was being able to teach again. "I am always a teacher and so that is what I will do," she said.

None of this undoes years of homelessness at an age when most people are long retired. But her life changed because one person stopped to ask her story instead of walking past, and then kept showing up after the video went up, turning a moment of attention into an income, a reunion, and a safe place to live.