The Roadside Woman

It was a sultry Sunday afternoon.I was out of cash.I had to drive to the bank to withdraw some for petrol.There was no rush at the State Bank of India,Cuttack Road Branch. As I came downstairs 15 thousand rupees in hand wrapped in a handkerchief,I contemplated my poor car for a minute and felt an immediate compulsion 

to dust it.My wife and my daughter scold me for my laziness most of the time. 

After clearing the dust coating the vehicle all over,

I replaced the little dirty piece of cloth ripped from an old cotton shirt of mine.Its original colour blue was no longer recognisable and hence I threw it away.

I reached the nearest petrol station and bought petrol for two thousand rupees.I was horrified realising that I had kept the wrapped bundle of banknotes on the low cement wall adjacent to the parking lot..!My heart started pounding with the anticipation that I was going to be scolded by my family for this kind of repeated behaviour of mine. One day a stranger had drawn my attention to an umbrella on the roof of the car while it was in motion. Another day I reached Sahid Nagar and to my utter surprise, found my mobile phone and a power-bank with its cord inserted in it were also travelling on the vehicle's roof when I was driving it inside.This situation struck me as particularly precarious and alarming because almost all soft copies of what I have written so far are stored in the mobile phone.I usually directly type whatever I want to on a number of notepads saved in the phone.

Now I had abjured that habit but it was hiding somewhere in my mind and had asserted itself in a different way. This time it was not the car roof but a low wall.I was pretty scared not because I was to sustain a pecuniary loss but I was thinking of the news reaching my family.

When I got back where I had parked the car,I saw a woman resembling a rag-picker was sitting beside my prized bundle kept as I had left it.She said,"You forgot this and drove away.Don't you remember having given me a five rupee coin..I was sitting there..." I recalled how she had come up to me from the roadside begging me money for a meal of rice and fish soup. I had given her only a five rupee coin.I collected my money and gave her a two hundred rupee note.

I came back home thinking about the honesty of the woman.I realised how mistaken people were to suspect slum people to be criminals.I was too busy to initiate a conversation with her.A series of phone calls from some impatient students diverted me from thinking about anything else. 

On reaching home around 10 at night, I ate my dinner silently and fell asleep.When the night was drawing to a close,I saw the woman in a dream. She was looking at me with her eyes sparkling with tears.I was at a temple of Mother Kali.

When I got up, I burst into sobs.My wife was doing something in the kitchen. My daughter was slumbering peacefully.I kept all this a secret to me.