Nine-year-old Rosy Silwal dropped out of Grade three in her native Dhading village because she was diagnosed with blood cancer and had to come to Kathmandu for treatment at the Kanti Children's Hospital. But her parents could not afford the treatment, and were getting desperate.

Film actor and airline captain, Vijay Lama, was reading the Gorkhapatra in the cockpit before a long flight to Kathmandu from Nepalganj recently when he spotted a news item about Rosy. Lama was due to start shooting director Narayan Puri's film on the Maoist insurgency, Alpabiram, and he decided to donate what he would earn from the film for Rosy's treatment.

This week, Lama took an advance of Rs 25,000 from his actor's fee and handed it over to Rosy's mother, Nanu Silwal. "It is the least I could do," Lama told Rosy's mother after visiting the hospital, "She is like a tiny flower, we must make it difficult for her to be plucked by fate."

Rosy is an only child and her parents are grateful to donors like Lama for helping out. "This is the only way I can afford the treatment," Nanu Silwal says. "She is in her fifth phase of treatment and is feeling much better."