She cleaned toilets for a living. During all of her childhood, she had never gone any further from the dilapidated gate of the solitary school in the district they lived in where she dropped her younger brother every morning before heading to the fields. Now at the age of thirty four, she had limited choices for a career.
Every morning as she boarded the 6:15 bus on the route and settled on the second window seat right behind the conductor, she thanked God for the job because it helped her place food before her family and get past another day’s worth of living. Sitting right behind the conductor helped her in many ways. She would chat with him and indulge in juicy gossip about the other frequenters on the bus which, she unabashedly admitted, was one of the greater pleasures in her life. An occasional light hearted flirting between the two of them added some zing to their otherwise drab existences.
Occasionally, on a chilly winter morning, she would let him have a bite from her piping hot lunch box. The fact that he would conveniently wipe the lunch box clean by the time she reached her destination did not bother her. For in return, he remembered to forget checking her ticket most days of the week. Going without lunch two days a week helped her save more than half her fare. She was quite happy with the bargain. And not surprisingly, in times like these, her job provided her with more job security than people who frequented her workplace possessed.
Before you jump to a conclusion about her workplace, I must tell you that it was the exact opposite of the sorry picture that the first few words might have painted in your mind. An air conditioned room, about three times the size of her one bedroom house, with plush interiors, stylish lighting, a vanity area with the tallest mirrors she had ever seen in her life, an attractive black leather settee and a massive sparkling granite counter constituted her workplace. Well-polished faucets that looked like they had barely been unboxed from their Made-In-Italy packaging peeped eagerly into huge crystal wash basins. Every two feet, well manicured potted plants adorned the counter top and the soap dispensers on the mirrored wall carried in their wombs, the promise of many clean, aromatic hand washes.
She had been struck in awe on her first day at work and had described, in excruciating detail, the wonders of the automatic hand dryer and deodorizer to her bus mates. She also made sure all the women on the bus had sniffed the soap that she had applied a little of on her hands before leaving for the day. They found it hard to believe that a free supply of sanitary napkins was available to whosoever needed them and yet hardly two or three were used up in a week. She worked as a janitor in an MNC office building and besides a meager salary of two thousand rupees a month which she had conveniently extrapolated to a wicked three before her audience; she earned the envy of most women on the bus who worked as household help, and unlike her, were made to clean toilets without rubber gloves on.
Today was another one of her lunch-less days. She sat in one corner of the room in her uniform, a brown sari and green overcoat with an embroidered logo of the housekeeping company that she was employed with, having double checked all the items on her checklist. Counter dry, soap dispensers ready, toilets flushed and reeking of phenyl, toilet-paper rolls replenished, floor mopped. She patiently waited for the supervisor visit. After the supervisor had finished her round, she planned to sneak into the pantry area and smuggle a few sachets of sugar. They usually gave her the energy to last until dinner.
Hearing some laughter on the other side of the door, she unplugged her finger from her nose and wiped it on her overcoat. She knew their uniform was designed to convert them into inconspicuous creatures who melted into the room’s upholstery. Despite all those efforts, they were eye-sores for those few who managed to take notice. Most others missed them. Though they often admired the texture of the wall tiles or the flower arrangement in the vanity.
Once in a while, a rare woman or two who frequented the ladies room would throw an awkward, clenched smile at her when they accidently bumped into her at the door. And then their fingers would inadvertently cover their noses conveying to their bodies that they had been too close to something unpleasant. Most others would look past her as if she didn’t exist. And for some strange reason, she found them most amusing - women who treated her no better than the toilet bowl they never looked back to check if the contents of had been cleared.
Revenge was sweet. And she didn’t believe in missing out on an opportunity. As soon as a woman would turn on the faucet to wash her hands, she would start flushing the seven toilet-bowls one after another, every three seconds. Since the water to the washbasins and the toilet commodes was supplied through a single connection, the flow of water in the faucet would stop every now and then, making it highly annoying for anyone trying to wash their hands. She relished every moment of that little misery she inflicted on her victim.
The door opened and two women, immersed in a conversation about what sounded like a cosmetics brand, entered the toilets. One was a rather tall, thin woman with short hair, about twenty five years, wearing a sleeveless pink top and a pair of disgustingly low low-waist jeans that gave her the appearance of a matchstick. The other, a short and stout one, about the same age, with magnificently thick black hair falling at her shoulders in beautiful curls, wore a loose pumpkin yellow top over a denim skirt. She checked herself out a couple of times in the mirror trying to suck her tummy in while the tall one rested her foot on the counter top to tie her shoe laces. Under any other circumstances, watching the shoe prints on the well polished counter top would have irritated her. But watching Pumpkin from the corner of her eye, trying, in vain, to find that one angle that camouflaged her love handles amused her to no end.
Pumpkin took out a large hair brush from her bag and started untangling her curls while Matchstick applied another coat of lipstick on her thin lips. Within a few minutes they were done with their grooming and out through the door.
Grudgingly, the solitary inhabitant of the room got up from her usual corner to take out the mop she planned to wipe the foot prints clean with. She pulled a tissue from the tissue box to wipe the water droplets inside the crystal bowls. As her fingers moved around on the inner glass of the washing bowls, collecting droplets of water into the tissue, something hard clinked against the glass. She picked it up.
What looked like a big drop of water at some distance was actually an ear stud, a piece of perfectly cut diamond encased in an outer shell of silver like metal. Each face of the diamond lit up brilliantly under the many spot lights on the false ceiling. It was the brightest, most perfect gem she had seen all her life and the first one she had ever held in her fingers. Her fingers trembled at the thought of where this gem might have landed had she turned on the faucet and allowed the water to wash it off into its intestines. She stood there, staring in amazement at the little piece of jewel, with a million thoughts racing through her mind.
Suddenly she heard footsteps outside the door. Not having decided on what she wanted to do with the little temptation sitting in her palm, she quickly slipped the tissue with the ear stud into her coat pocket and walked back to her usual place.
“Do you remember wearing it when you were in front of the mirror?” Matchstick and Pumpkin stormed into the toilets.
“I don’t know. I was right here, combing my hair. I wouldn’t have been able to tell. I am not wearing my contacts today.” Pumpkin was pointing to the spot where she stood a few minutes back. She was close to tears.
“Think hard. It might have fallen off anywhere then; at the bus stop, in the bus, in the elevator or even in the cafeteria.” Matchstick bent down and looked under the counter top while Pumpkin was frantically scanning the washing bowls with squinting eyes.
“It doesn’t seem to be here”, declared Matchstick, straightening her back. She had checked out the entire floor on her knees.
"Its real solitaire" Pumpkin's voice was now muffled with tears, "I remember my mother-in-law telling the whole world that the pair cost her one and a half lakh rupees. Even if she was exaggerating, each must be around at least a fifty-sixty thousand."
“She will kill me if she knows…” she added in the same breath.
“Over a lakh! Are you kidding me? And you wear it casually to work every day?” exclaimed Matchstick. She ran her fingers over the silver studs on her ears. She had bought them at a local market for three hundred rupees. In a flash, any traces of envy turned into a pleasurable serves-you-right kind of feeling in her eyes. Ah! The minds of women.
“Let’s go down and check the cafeteria. And we should also inform Security. Show them the other earring and let them take a picture of it. They’ll find it if it fell somewhere inside the building. These guys are usually good with lost-and-found”.
Matchstick pulled out a tissue paper and handed it over to Pumpkin. The act had the effect of making Pumpkin cry even more inconsolably.
Together the women walked out the door. Leaving behind them a very surprised woman.
“Sixty Thousand Rupees!” she managed to finally breathe out.
“Ha! Finders are keepers. Aren’t they?” A faint devilish flicker of light came up in eyes already bedazzled with the shine of the gem stone.
“Keep it. It belongs to you now.”
“Return it. It isn’t yours.”
“What good would it do staying put on a dumb little earlobe? It can change my life.”
“No. This isn’t right.”
“There are a lot of things that are not right. The world is living comfortably with them. Why does Padma have to work as a maid all her life? Is that right? I can send her to college with the money”.
Padma was her sixteen year old daughter who had just finished high school. College admission demanded money.
“The money is stolen.”
“It isn’t stolen. What if it had really gone down that drain? It would have been lost forever. No good it would have brought to the world. Now it can give a deserving person a chance to build a better life. Wouldn’t that be a life of more meaning and purpose for a futile adornment?”
Her grip on the tissue tightened and the little angel on her right shoulder faded away for lack of a counter argument.
Suddenly, overjoyed at having easily won the hardest battle mankind has ever had to face, little ideas started to march around in her head like a battalion of ants.
How would she take this diamond out of the facility?
Where would she hide it?
Who would she sell it to?
Selling perhaps, was the easy part. There was this chap the bus conductor had once told her about, a friend of his who was a regular contributor to the chor-bazaar. She could strike a deal with him. Fifty thousand. Yes, she wouldn't settle for anything less than fifty thousand rupees. Fifty was all she needed. And they could keep whatever was the rest. A warm feeling of generosity took over her heart and helped put at ease, the faint little voice inside her head.
How would she explain the money to her family? Her husband? Would he believe where the money was from?
Maybe not.
Did she care?
Again, maybe not. Padma would believe. And that was all that mattered.
Now how would she take it out of the facility? Hiding it in her clothes was not going to work. She remembered the woman with the tight bun and a khaki sari who frisked her from head to toe every morning and evening at the service staff entry-exit gates. She had often wondered what she felt like, running her hands all over a hundred female bodies, every single day of her life. Once in a while she thought her fingers had lingered on a little longer on hers but maybe that was just her imagination. And then maybe not. Maybe she too, after a tough day’s work, lay down next to a man who came home every night, having poured himself into another woman, with little to offer her. She smiled. A dry smile that was so characteristic of her. The gem stone in her palm smiled back innocently at her.
No, she would have to think of another way. She could hide it between her toes in her slippers and walk out the gate. Anyone who noticed might mistake it for a toe ring. But a toe ring on one foot? Surely, that would arouse interest.
Strangely, all these years she had felt like an inanimate piece of the building’s décor and had hated it. Today she felt like she was under the spotlight and how she hated even that! Her heart beat wildly in her chest. In the quiet stillness of the room where the gurgling of water in the pipes around her was the predominant sound that surrounded her all day, she could hear her heartbeat loud and clear.
Where would this little piece of diamond go unnoticed?
Of course, the ears! Why didn’t she think of that? Her fingers rested on the tiny silver rings in her ears. She could take these off and wear the earring in one of the ears. Yes, in the left ear, as Tight-bun stood on her right on the way out. And she could cover her right ear with her hair.
But wouldn’t this brilliant piece of ornament look completely out of place on her earlobe?
All she needed to do was make it look worn-out and old. And dirty enough to match with the rest of her appearance. She also needed to find a place to hide her earrings.
She held the diamond near her left earlobe and adjusted the hair on the right so that they fell on her face. She found herself looking at the image of a magnificent, beautiful woman in the mirror. That’s what jewels do to any woman. They transform her. She smiled.
And that's when she saw it. In the mirror's reflection. The potted plant. She would rub a little of its soft wet earth on the diamond. That would do the trick. And she could stuff her silver earrings in the same potted plant, come back the next day and wear them back on her way out.
She sighed with relief. It was all sorted then. And on the other side of the gate waited a new life for her daughter.
Just then, when she was basking in her new found happiness, that old nagging feeling came back again. Though it seemed alright, it didn’t feel right. The stone didn't belong to her.
Once again she outfought it. And reached for the plant.
Before she could pinch a little of the pot’s mud, the toilet door opened. She grabbed the floor mop and rushed towards her usual spot near the door. The tissue with the stone clenched tightly in her left hand.
She nearly bumped into Pumpkin this time.
Pumpkin was inside the room, the other earring in her hand and for the first time, making eye contact with her.
“Have you seen the other one like this?” she said in a voice muffled with tears. And her eyes conveying a lot more than the words did.
In a moment, just as fast the rush of excitement had travelled through her heart to her mind, it all came crashing down.
She really only wanted to be spoken to once, by the people she served all day. To be noticed. To be treated like another human being. It was a lonely life. That of cleaning up after people who banged the door on her face on their way out.
Finally she had been noticed. She was no longer a piece of furniture. With that little gesture, Pumpkin had filled up the biggest cavity in her heart.
The stubborn uncomfortable feeling in her heart vanished. She extended her hand and opened the tissue before Pumpkin to reveal the other half of the twins.
“Oh my God!” Pumpkin shrieked with joy. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Her tears were genuine. Taking the other half of her earrings from the palm stretched out before her, she placed them back into her purse. Her hand lingered over a hundred rupee note for a brief moment, before she pulled out a fifty rupee note and offered it to the woman wearing a green overcoat.
“No Madam. Thank you.” The woman in the green overcoat said softly and turned around.
With the air of a busy, happy person, one without a care in the world, she started mopping the floor, gently humming to herself.
Every morning as she boarded the 6:15 bus on the route and settled on the second window seat right behind the conductor, she thanked God for the job because it helped her place food before her family and get past another day’s worth of living. Sitting right behind the conductor helped her in many ways. She would chat with him and indulge in juicy gossip about the other frequenters on the bus which, she unabashedly admitted, was one of the greater pleasures in her life. An occasional light hearted flirting between the two of them added some zing to their otherwise drab existences.
Occasionally, on a chilly winter morning, she would let him have a bite from her piping hot lunch box. The fact that he would conveniently wipe the lunch box clean by the time she reached her destination did not bother her. For in return, he remembered to forget checking her ticket most days of the week. Going without lunch two days a week helped her save more than half her fare. She was quite happy with the bargain. And not surprisingly, in times like these, her job provided her with more job security than people who frequented her workplace possessed.
Before you jump to a conclusion about her workplace, I must tell you that it was the exact opposite of the sorry picture that the first few words might have painted in your mind. An air conditioned room, about three times the size of her one bedroom house, with plush interiors, stylish lighting, a vanity area with the tallest mirrors she had ever seen in her life, an attractive black leather settee and a massive sparkling granite counter constituted her workplace. Well-polished faucets that looked like they had barely been unboxed from their Made-In-Italy packaging peeped eagerly into huge crystal wash basins. Every two feet, well manicured potted plants adorned the counter top and the soap dispensers on the mirrored wall carried in their wombs, the promise of many clean, aromatic hand washes.
She had been struck in awe on her first day at work and had described, in excruciating detail, the wonders of the automatic hand dryer and deodorizer to her bus mates. She also made sure all the women on the bus had sniffed the soap that she had applied a little of on her hands before leaving for the day. They found it hard to believe that a free supply of sanitary napkins was available to whosoever needed them and yet hardly two or three were used up in a week. She worked as a janitor in an MNC office building and besides a meager salary of two thousand rupees a month which she had conveniently extrapolated to a wicked three before her audience; she earned the envy of most women on the bus who worked as household help, and unlike her, were made to clean toilets without rubber gloves on.
Today was another one of her lunch-less days. She sat in one corner of the room in her uniform, a brown sari and green overcoat with an embroidered logo of the housekeeping company that she was employed with, having double checked all the items on her checklist. Counter dry, soap dispensers ready, toilets flushed and reeking of phenyl, toilet-paper rolls replenished, floor mopped. She patiently waited for the supervisor visit. After the supervisor had finished her round, she planned to sneak into the pantry area and smuggle a few sachets of sugar. They usually gave her the energy to last until dinner.
Hearing some laughter on the other side of the door, she unplugged her finger from her nose and wiped it on her overcoat. She knew their uniform was designed to convert them into inconspicuous creatures who melted into the room’s upholstery. Despite all those efforts, they were eye-sores for those few who managed to take notice. Most others missed them. Though they often admired the texture of the wall tiles or the flower arrangement in the vanity.
Once in a while, a rare woman or two who frequented the ladies room would throw an awkward, clenched smile at her when they accidently bumped into her at the door. And then their fingers would inadvertently cover their noses conveying to their bodies that they had been too close to something unpleasant. Most others would look past her as if she didn’t exist. And for some strange reason, she found them most amusing - women who treated her no better than the toilet bowl they never looked back to check if the contents of had been cleared.
Revenge was sweet. And she didn’t believe in missing out on an opportunity. As soon as a woman would turn on the faucet to wash her hands, she would start flushing the seven toilet-bowls one after another, every three seconds. Since the water to the washbasins and the toilet commodes was supplied through a single connection, the flow of water in the faucet would stop every now and then, making it highly annoying for anyone trying to wash their hands. She relished every moment of that little misery she inflicted on her victim.
The door opened and two women, immersed in a conversation about what sounded like a cosmetics brand, entered the toilets. One was a rather tall, thin woman with short hair, about twenty five years, wearing a sleeveless pink top and a pair of disgustingly low low-waist jeans that gave her the appearance of a matchstick. The other, a short and stout one, about the same age, with magnificently thick black hair falling at her shoulders in beautiful curls, wore a loose pumpkin yellow top over a denim skirt. She checked herself out a couple of times in the mirror trying to suck her tummy in while the tall one rested her foot on the counter top to tie her shoe laces. Under any other circumstances, watching the shoe prints on the well polished counter top would have irritated her. But watching Pumpkin from the corner of her eye, trying, in vain, to find that one angle that camouflaged her love handles amused her to no end.
Pumpkin took out a large hair brush from her bag and started untangling her curls while Matchstick applied another coat of lipstick on her thin lips. Within a few minutes they were done with their grooming and out through the door.
Grudgingly, the solitary inhabitant of the room got up from her usual corner to take out the mop she planned to wipe the foot prints clean with. She pulled a tissue from the tissue box to wipe the water droplets inside the crystal bowls. As her fingers moved around on the inner glass of the washing bowls, collecting droplets of water into the tissue, something hard clinked against the glass. She picked it up.
What looked like a big drop of water at some distance was actually an ear stud, a piece of perfectly cut diamond encased in an outer shell of silver like metal. Each face of the diamond lit up brilliantly under the many spot lights on the false ceiling. It was the brightest, most perfect gem she had seen all her life and the first one she had ever held in her fingers. Her fingers trembled at the thought of where this gem might have landed had she turned on the faucet and allowed the water to wash it off into its intestines. She stood there, staring in amazement at the little piece of jewel, with a million thoughts racing through her mind.
Suddenly she heard footsteps outside the door. Not having decided on what she wanted to do with the little temptation sitting in her palm, she quickly slipped the tissue with the ear stud into her coat pocket and walked back to her usual place.
“Do you remember wearing it when you were in front of the mirror?” Matchstick and Pumpkin stormed into the toilets.
“I don’t know. I was right here, combing my hair. I wouldn’t have been able to tell. I am not wearing my contacts today.” Pumpkin was pointing to the spot where she stood a few minutes back. She was close to tears.
“Think hard. It might have fallen off anywhere then; at the bus stop, in the bus, in the elevator or even in the cafeteria.” Matchstick bent down and looked under the counter top while Pumpkin was frantically scanning the washing bowls with squinting eyes.
“It doesn’t seem to be here”, declared Matchstick, straightening her back. She had checked out the entire floor on her knees.
"Its real solitaire" Pumpkin's voice was now muffled with tears, "I remember my mother-in-law telling the whole world that the pair cost her one and a half lakh rupees. Even if she was exaggerating, each must be around at least a fifty-sixty thousand."
“She will kill me if she knows…” she added in the same breath.
“Over a lakh! Are you kidding me? And you wear it casually to work every day?” exclaimed Matchstick. She ran her fingers over the silver studs on her ears. She had bought them at a local market for three hundred rupees. In a flash, any traces of envy turned into a pleasurable serves-you-right kind of feeling in her eyes. Ah! The minds of women.
“Let’s go down and check the cafeteria. And we should also inform Security. Show them the other earring and let them take a picture of it. They’ll find it if it fell somewhere inside the building. These guys are usually good with lost-and-found”.
Matchstick pulled out a tissue paper and handed it over to Pumpkin. The act had the effect of making Pumpkin cry even more inconsolably.
Together the women walked out the door. Leaving behind them a very surprised woman.
“Sixty Thousand Rupees!” she managed to finally breathe out.
“Ha! Finders are keepers. Aren’t they?” A faint devilish flicker of light came up in eyes already bedazzled with the shine of the gem stone.
“Keep it. It belongs to you now.”
“Return it. It isn’t yours.”
“What good would it do staying put on a dumb little earlobe? It can change my life.”
“No. This isn’t right.”
“There are a lot of things that are not right. The world is living comfortably with them. Why does Padma have to work as a maid all her life? Is that right? I can send her to college with the money”.
Padma was her sixteen year old daughter who had just finished high school. College admission demanded money.
“The money is stolen.”
“It isn’t stolen. What if it had really gone down that drain? It would have been lost forever. No good it would have brought to the world. Now it can give a deserving person a chance to build a better life. Wouldn’t that be a life of more meaning and purpose for a futile adornment?”
Her grip on the tissue tightened and the little angel on her right shoulder faded away for lack of a counter argument.
Suddenly, overjoyed at having easily won the hardest battle mankind has ever had to face, little ideas started to march around in her head like a battalion of ants.
How would she take this diamond out of the facility?
Where would she hide it?
Who would she sell it to?
Selling perhaps, was the easy part. There was this chap the bus conductor had once told her about, a friend of his who was a regular contributor to the chor-bazaar. She could strike a deal with him. Fifty thousand. Yes, she wouldn't settle for anything less than fifty thousand rupees. Fifty was all she needed. And they could keep whatever was the rest. A warm feeling of generosity took over her heart and helped put at ease, the faint little voice inside her head.
How would she explain the money to her family? Her husband? Would he believe where the money was from?
Maybe not.
Did she care?
Again, maybe not. Padma would believe. And that was all that mattered.
Now how would she take it out of the facility? Hiding it in her clothes was not going to work. She remembered the woman with the tight bun and a khaki sari who frisked her from head to toe every morning and evening at the service staff entry-exit gates. She had often wondered what she felt like, running her hands all over a hundred female bodies, every single day of her life. Once in a while she thought her fingers had lingered on a little longer on hers but maybe that was just her imagination. And then maybe not. Maybe she too, after a tough day’s work, lay down next to a man who came home every night, having poured himself into another woman, with little to offer her. She smiled. A dry smile that was so characteristic of her. The gem stone in her palm smiled back innocently at her.
No, she would have to think of another way. She could hide it between her toes in her slippers and walk out the gate. Anyone who noticed might mistake it for a toe ring. But a toe ring on one foot? Surely, that would arouse interest.
Strangely, all these years she had felt like an inanimate piece of the building’s décor and had hated it. Today she felt like she was under the spotlight and how she hated even that! Her heart beat wildly in her chest. In the quiet stillness of the room where the gurgling of water in the pipes around her was the predominant sound that surrounded her all day, she could hear her heartbeat loud and clear.
Where would this little piece of diamond go unnoticed?
Of course, the ears! Why didn’t she think of that? Her fingers rested on the tiny silver rings in her ears. She could take these off and wear the earring in one of the ears. Yes, in the left ear, as Tight-bun stood on her right on the way out. And she could cover her right ear with her hair.
But wouldn’t this brilliant piece of ornament look completely out of place on her earlobe?
All she needed to do was make it look worn-out and old. And dirty enough to match with the rest of her appearance. She also needed to find a place to hide her earrings.
She held the diamond near her left earlobe and adjusted the hair on the right so that they fell on her face. She found herself looking at the image of a magnificent, beautiful woman in the mirror. That’s what jewels do to any woman. They transform her. She smiled.
And that's when she saw it. In the mirror's reflection. The potted plant. She would rub a little of its soft wet earth on the diamond. That would do the trick. And she could stuff her silver earrings in the same potted plant, come back the next day and wear them back on her way out.
She sighed with relief. It was all sorted then. And on the other side of the gate waited a new life for her daughter.
Just then, when she was basking in her new found happiness, that old nagging feeling came back again. Though it seemed alright, it didn’t feel right. The stone didn't belong to her.
Once again she outfought it. And reached for the plant.
Before she could pinch a little of the pot’s mud, the toilet door opened. She grabbed the floor mop and rushed towards her usual spot near the door. The tissue with the stone clenched tightly in her left hand.
She nearly bumped into Pumpkin this time.
Pumpkin was inside the room, the other earring in her hand and for the first time, making eye contact with her.
“Have you seen the other one like this?” she said in a voice muffled with tears. And her eyes conveying a lot more than the words did.
In a moment, just as fast the rush of excitement had travelled through her heart to her mind, it all came crashing down.
She really only wanted to be spoken to once, by the people she served all day. To be noticed. To be treated like another human being. It was a lonely life. That of cleaning up after people who banged the door on her face on their way out.
Finally she had been noticed. She was no longer a piece of furniture. With that little gesture, Pumpkin had filled up the biggest cavity in her heart.
The stubborn uncomfortable feeling in her heart vanished. She extended her hand and opened the tissue before Pumpkin to reveal the other half of the twins.
“Oh my God!” Pumpkin shrieked with joy. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Her tears were genuine. Taking the other half of her earrings from the palm stretched out before her, she placed them back into her purse. Her hand lingered over a hundred rupee note for a brief moment, before she pulled out a fifty rupee note and offered it to the woman wearing a green overcoat.
“No Madam. Thank you.” The woman in the green overcoat said softly and turned around.
With the air of a busy, happy person, one without a care in the world, she started mopping the floor, gently humming to herself.
6 comments:
You are going to get me addicted to your writing one of these days.
It is a truly heart-warming work. With what finesse and astuteness you have seen into the life of a janitor. Her little pleasures, her hardships, her dreams, her solitariness and the mental turmoil she goes through, through the internal debate she has with herself about the morality of possessing an unowned article, have all been captured through a striking selection of words in an extremely articulate narration.
The undercurrent of pathos is unmistakable but the story has been crafted so well that at no point, it seems overwhelming and the story continues to do justice to just what it intends to achieve.
I noted with a smile, the description of the two young ladies and the mirth of calling them Pumpkin and Matchstick. This particular element shows the maturity of the author in the sense that throughout the narration, the author is separate from her story and the characters therein and yet she is close enough to portray them with an incisive skill. Do you see now why you are so special? Read your work and fall in love with it.
This story is easily one of the best you have written. "The Mother" was one such work as well.
Well done and do continue writing. Do not lose it now, now that you found it.
Congratulations!!!
Just finished reading it in one breath and am still grasping for words to describe my reaction/feedback to the story.You are getting better by the day dear and please please write more frequently.I loved every word,every description of characters/emotions.turmoil and the end ,it was all so perfect.Kudos to you for coming out with such a masterpiece.Love you for this.
Like always I have no words!
Perfect.. what a wonderful narration. You should publish a book of short stories...
Thanks Shekhar Ji, Gayatri and Archana. :)
Thanks Joy. I realized today that even though I often speak to the others who frequent my blog and in some way or another I thank them for reading my work and giving me advice, critique and encouragement, I have been very bad at writing back to you to say how much I appreciate your stopping by my blog and dropping such encouraging notes. Thanks a lot. :)
What suspense!! I like the details of her work life... I agree about the attitude we have in our busy lives to not "see" some people...
Loved the ending :)
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