Ultimate Sufferers

Abhi, Sujata, and their son Kesav had shifted into a posh apartment in Bengaluru, near Abhi's office. They were in the process of settling down in the metro city after being promoted and transferred from his small-town office.

One evening, when Abhi returned from the office, Kesav ran to him and narrated in his stammering, childish gibberish, how an old woman had come to visit their house and had made his mother cry!

Sujata clarified to Abhi while serving tea," It was Sitamma, the elderly sweeper woman of the apartment, in her eighties, who said that she hadn't eaten anything for two days. I gave her some food and money and asked her why she had to work at her age with associated ailments like decreased vision, joint pain, and backache, etc. Sitamma said that she had lost her only earning son, in a road accident, two years back. She didn't even have enough money to cremate him. So she had buried him in a remote area of the sea beach and she was compelled to work to feed herself since then. This made me cry, imagining what extent of misery a mother would have endured after losing her only son!"

Abhi said," You are too soft-hearted dear. Anyone can make a fool of you and extract money from you by telling a sob story." Sujata repeated her parents' words, that a person's virtues and vices are noticed by God Himself, even if the recipient of the compassion or donation is a cheat.

As the days went by, they noticed some disturbance brewing between the builder of the apartment and some residents of the society. Abhi and Sujata were a peace-loving couple who didn't want to displease anyone. The cause of the conflicts also seemed very trivial to them.

The matter was that the builder was using the ground floor of the apartment as his office and was paying for the security and sweeper services in return. Abhi and Sujata couldn't understand where lay the problem except the ego clashes of the two parties.

The matter was dragged to the city development authorities, police station, court and finally the builder lost the case after almost 2-3 years and handed over management to the society and vacated the premises.

Just out of malice, the society secretary fired Sitamma and the elderly security personnel, accusing them of inefficiency at their age. As Abhi's family were tenants, they didn't have any say in the matter.

In between Sujata and little Kesav had become quite fond of Sitamma, as they missed the motherly care in this machine-like city life. Sujata kept on brooding where Sitamma had gone, but nobody knew the answer.

One day, when they were passing a roadside Dhaba ( small restaurant), Kesav began to shout," Look Mama, Sitamma is washing utensils there!!" They stopped the car immediately and approached her to find her sick and frail, almost invisible among the mountains of dirty utensils.

Sitamma burst into tears as she saw Sujata and said that she was working there only to get food twice a day and was sleeping near the Dhaba at night.

Sujata asked her," Amma, will you be the housekeeper of my house? As I'm going to have a second baby, I am going to need a lot of help and motherly care in the coming days for myself, Keshav, and the baby." She explained to Sitamma that both of their parents were unable due to their other responsibilities, to come to take care of them.

Sitamma agreed promptly, wiping her tears and gathered her meager belongings immediately to come with them, with a smile of contentment of finding the road to home, at last, blooming on her exhausted, shriveled face.

In every conflict in our society, let it be for power, position, money, or ego clash, the affluent refuse to make peace among themselves and the poor strata of the society become the ultimate sufferers of the stubbornness of the rich. Only if people could be more human rather than behaving like rabid animals, the world would be a better place to live in...

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