Lonely Lady

 

Lonely Lady

It is International World Women’s Day and I see the lonely Lady I often see her in the Park in the mornings. She comes for a breather and breakfast, while I expand my breath and ambulate. I watch her secretly on my every round. She sits solemnly and stoically and administers her medicine from her well organized and spacious hand bag. She literally carries everything in it, almost her entire world. Tooth Brush and ablutions kit, a small towel, medicines, drinking water, snacks like fox nuts, dried poha and lunch for later. Sometimes I have seen her take a nap in the sun with her a bag as pillow and her ample shawl as a blanket. She dresses warmly. Her face has folds of untold stories.

I inferred, she works in homes in shifts and comes to the park to rest, recuperate and nourish herself. She unpacks and packs meticulously and chews her meals elegantly - daintily. Seldom on the phone, though she has a basic phone, she must be in her 50s or 60s, it’s hard to tell with some faces.

Today, I go closer to her and start a conversation, she empathizes with me like I empathize  with her, we show each other some compassion and then she pours a little out. The homes she works for don’t even offer her a cup of water, let alone a cup of tea ( I have seen her fill a small jar with water from the tap in the park). Yes she works as a cook in few houses in the morning and noon shifts- cooking for them, however she was looking for some work for the evening shift say at 5 pm or so. We exchanged numbers, me hoping to invite her first for a meal when I cook and then look at some arrangement to enhance her scope and quality of life with work or better conditions.

She has an  easy beatific smile and an uncomplaining demeanour and even when she talked about the beastly homes that didn’t offer her anything  ( water, food , place to rest), in this beastly and bitter winter which was bitterly cold, perhaps the coldest I am told  in 70 years.  She, left me, with admiration and beginning of a new friendship on Women’s day.