Earlier I used to feel good and comfortable sitting and dining amongst the girls with whom destiny had played the same ugly game.
But now-a-days, my sentiments on the dining table have changed.
I feel bad about them.
This 45 years old, Kannada, Revathi. She looks so happy, working for a School for disabled, but I really see the sadness, loneliness and ambiguity of scary future all alone, layers beyond her smile.
Girls babble that they have heard that the Warden is a divorcee. Her daughter sometimes, comes and stays in her room.
I see the Warden, never going on leave, not getting ready like a married Hindu woman, and smile from her heart, to be specific. Does any of her actions indicate normalcy, except when she yells at the pantry boys.
Then, this short shabbily dressed wheatish complexioned lady, with henna dyed blunt cut hair, whom I see almost everyday at the Temple street while on my way to lunch. The moment she enters the 300 meters stretch of the street, all the stray dogs run towards her, welcoming her like a celebrity. And, she concealing her love from the world, with an expressionless face, feeds them with Parle- G and strokes their necks- evidencing her sincere, selfless love.
This lady, I don’t know her name. Extremely ugly. Beggar like face and wretched skin. She looks like a punishment to eyes.
She always wears a T-shirt with broad brown lines and an unclean track pants, and is always, I said, ‘always’ found reading novels and taking down notes from it.
Never have I seen the dining hall without her, and she without a book in her hand. Her frizzy grey hairs add to her ugliness after her wrinkled spooky face that bears a calm expression. She eats like a hungry monkey.
I have never seen the color of her eyes- nor will I ever see, as she always walks with her head lowered.
No matter how much she may hide behind those second hand shabby novels, but she cant do away with the uncut wires of her ruins attached.
I feel sad for them.
I feel sad for all these ladies.
I feel sad for the Warden, no matter how many restrictions she puts and how many times she fines us all and screams at us.
I feel sad when I look at their under-eyed circles and grey-white falling hair and ‘no more in vogue’ dressings.
I feel sad to see their unpainted nails and expressionless actions.
How can the most gracious God, be so cruel?
