Social Story – Maid of Honour
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I could just stand there and see her breathe. Her chest was heaving and tears were streaming down her cheeks. She was trying her best to control her emotions and utter a few words but was making a poor job of it. Finally she mumbled a ‘thanks’ and repeated the promise she made on the phone – that she will repay me as soon as she can. I just stood there dumbly watching her go back inside her house and I walked back to my car and sat there a few minutes recollecting all the events that happened of my chance meeting with her.
It was a Saturday afternoon and I was killing time at the bus stand, waiting to pick up my daughter coming home for the long week-end. The bus from Chennai should have reached half-an-hour back. probably it is running in tune with the clock-tower in the bus stand. I was trying to amuse myself by observing people; it is always fun to do so.
The festive mood was already setting in and the holiday crowd was thronging the bus stand. The local buses were all packed like sardine cans and people were literally spilling out of the entrances. The foot-board was jammed with people clinging to anything attached to the vehicle. As a bus started moving slowly out of the stand, dangerously careening to one side, a young woman carrying a boy in one hand and a huge jute bag in the other, came running. She tried to board the bus but with her hands heavily laden it would have been quite a feat to find a place to put her foot on the steps and none of the men who were clinging to the rails were in a mood to give her way. She gave up and even as I was watching, another bus rolled in and there was an action re-play.
I observed that she was trying to board buses going towards my village. As soon as my daughter arrived we walked up to her and offered to drop her. She hesitated a second but decided to accept the offer. I took her bag and we walked to the parking lot. Her destination was an industrial township just five kms away and was bang on route. During the journey she was very quiet and the two words she spoke – her name and her son’s name – were literally pulled out of her mouth by my daughter.
As we neared the township, she pointed to a small house a little distance away from the road. There was only a narrow path leading to the house and so we stopped the car to let her out. A typical country-side house it was, tiled and with dais on either side of the entrance. The garden consisted of two banana trees and a hibiscus plant. Even as she eyed the house, her eyes welled with tears. It was rather obvious that she was in distress. In a fit of compassion I scribbled my name and telephone number on the back of a bill and gave it to her. I said “I don’t want to pry into your affairs but if you want any help, call me”. She accepted the paper. As we drove away her lips moved but no sound came and I deciphered it as ‘thanks’.
Months rolled by and the incident was soon interred deep underneath myriad events of modern living. Suddenly, out of the blue, one murky day my telephone rang and the caller identified herself as Yellamma. It took a minute for realization to sink in. I recovered quickly and she said “Sir, my father died ten days back and I need some money for the last rites” Why misfortunes never come in singles? “Sir, I need Rs.5000. I will try to repay as quickly as I can” she said. The assurance was good enough for me and the reason even better, so I drove to her place to give her the money. Her eyes were dry but bleary when she came out to meet me. She took the money, muttered thanks under her breath and disappeared into the house.
Six months went by. There was no word from her. I had mentally written off the money I had lent her. Again I was surprised by a call. This time it was a male voice identifying himself as Yellamma’s neighbour. “Sir, can you please come. I am too old to come in search of your place” he said. I obliged his request and went looking for him that afternoon. A little girl called out for him as I enquired and an old man tottered out. He proffered a packet with my name and telephone number written on it. Inside I found a thick wad of notes wrapped in a white paper. There was a single word ‘thanks’ written on it.
I looked at the old man quizzically. He said “Yellamma committed suicide a week back”. My knees turned jelly and when I recovered from the shock, I asked him in a feeble voice as to what happened. “What to tell you”, the old man rambled, “her husband came with a court order and took the son away. That shock killed her father. He was all she had. But she found a job in the packing section of a medicine company and so we thought that she had reconciled to a lonely life. Last Saturday she gave me this packet to be handed over to you because she was going somewhere urgently. But Sunday morning we found her dead. She had consumed some poison. In the melee created by the police and doctors, I forgot all about the packet.”
The poor woman had worked just long enough to save the money needed to repay her debt and ended her life then and there because she had no one to live for. I wept.
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