Take The Leap

It was the story when I was pursuing graduation as a student of Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha. There a Women I saw every day for my last year of graduation sweeping and cleaning my hostel at the same time she was helping her husband at a tea stall. sometimes she shared with me about her family. She was in so much pain because her daughter treating her badly as she is an illiterate woman. Few months before her daughter passed 10th exam. she was feeling embarrassed in front of her friends while introducing her mother. Whatever her mother tells her, she was not listening to her. It’s really pitiful, When your child doesn’t listen to you only for your illiteracy.

I was feeling sad after listening to her story. The lady who becomes a mother to me without any blood relation she was in pain that made me crazy. I told her, I can teach you some basics like writing letters, reading books and counting money which will be helpful to you. She was convinced and I started teaching her. Whenever I am not in the room, I gave her task to do in front of my roommates. At first, my roommates are also kind to her, they also took classes of her. Every day after sweeping she used to sit for 1 hour in our room for her study. Suddenly I went to my home for some necessary works , after coming I didn't found her. One of my roommate told,” nobody has the patience to teach her, so she is not coming”.

She'd greet me with a smile, ask me my daily life and at the end before leaving she tells me "Thank You" in Odia! It intrigued me, I should be the one thanking her, but instead, she'd do it first anyway. when I was suffering from fever, she just simply came and sit by my side and pat my head and started telling me some random stories to divert my mind from fever. One day I was leaving for my usual 8 am routine, going for my Project class, when I happened to look across the street, the middle-aged maushi, as I'm accustomed to calling her, was not at her stall which is outside of my hostel. I walked over and tried to see a sign saying why she didn't come for cleaning already as she was every day, but I found none. I stopped thinking about it and ran towards my rickshaw.

But the whole day at class was a waste, I knew there was a story in there somewhere but I couldn't see it.

Armed with my inquisitiveness, I went to her stall on my way to the hostel. To my surprise, there was a very old, tired man working at the stall. I asked him, Mausaji, Aaj maushi nahi aayi?

He smiled at me, beaming with pride and said," Nahi woh exam dene gayi hai".

He was swamped with customers, so I didn't question him further. From the next day, there was no stall, no sign of tea and no Mausha Maushi. Eventually, like everything mundane in life, I forgot about her. It's been 3 years since I thought about maushi, so imagine my surprise when I picked up the newspaper and read Chai wala's wife become a teacher and opens 10 schools across rural Odisha. Now her smiling face pushes me to do better every single day. Inspiration is everywhere, you just need to take the leap.