That winter....

As she accelerated her bike, Anita felt the cold air hit her with a greater force, billowing her driving jacket and sending chills through the thick wool. The temperature had dropped precariously the last night to probably the lowest that season with the weather reports claming it to be the lowest in decade.

That morning when she was lying in her warm bed, she had and unsettling feeling of uneasiness growing inside her for no reason that she could attribute it to which had not allowed her to enjoy the warmth that she normally savoured in early winter mornings.

As she drove to college, the usual hustle-bustle and the crowd was almost absent and the streets looked deserted , with people probably trying to stay indoors on this cold morning . She turned into the street leading to her college, she automatically started cursing the road with its potholes and the drainage water that was flowing out from the broken pipelines. Struggling to manevour her vehicle through this stretch of the road, her eyes suddenly fell on a sprawled figure, almost strewn on to one side of the road about half way across the street. With a hesitant feeling, she slowed her speed down to take in the details of the unmoving figure.

With slow realization that dawned upon her, she realized that she was looking down at the lifeless, stone cold body of a dirty graying –black haired and wizened old woman who seemed to have died of the cold sometime in the night. Every wrinkle on her cold conorted face seemed to be telling a story. She was one of those homeless and ragged people on the road without even the bare minimum to cover themselves against the cold.

Nothing about the unmoving body gave a hint that there was any sign left of life in it.

The feet were frozen like a log with dirty soles and severely cracked heels covered with the dust from being barefooted on the road and arms had cracks with clotted blood streaks probably from the skin cracked in the cold. A flimsy sari made of a thin fabric covered her starvation riddled torso and ended above the heels. The wizened face with the tighly prused up lips as if frozen mid way in the shiver against the chill and eyes showing lines of whites gave Anita a depressing ,almost frightening feeling of looking at a wayward dead body.

She quickly averted her eyes from the wrenching state of the figure, Anita zoomed away knowing there was nothing anyone could do.

The last image that she saw from the corner of her eyes was the fluttering of the hem of the sari in the wind around her ankles with a breeze from the acceleration of her bike.

Lakshmiamma wasn’t always this poor and starved. Shehad also seen the days of warmth and luxury of being inside a 4 walled brick house. She had a single room with a wooden door, awkwardly fitted into the red bricks with rusty metal hinges which creaked whenever opened. The roof was made out of aluminium sheets,a lxury that most other houses in her slum didnt have.In the monsoon, the rain made loud noises when they fell on the metal sheets and she was always glad to being inside this dry room of hers. She never failed to thank god for providing this modest , but safe accommodation.

She was much better off than the next door neighbours of her who were loud and quarreled over food, space and everything possible.They dint even have a proper thatched roof and were twelve in number.

Her husband had died about 20 years ago after a bout of fever and blood-ridded coughand the doctor in the big hospital at the end of the government street had said that there was no more hope.

She had no children to fend for which was blessing in disguise as the monsy that she used to save form her husbands earning in a plastic jar behind the photograph of lord Krishna in her room now started geting used up for weekly visits to the doctors and the medicines.

She had never worked worked before in her life when her husband was alive. They were well off enough to have two meals of dal and rice with occasional Sunday vegetables. All this changedthe night when he died in the dorm room of the hospital

Since then she started to work in the nearby big apartments and earned her monsy by sweeping the stairs every morning. And washing utensils at the home of a newly married couple who later moved away leaving her with lesser money .

Her troublesbegan the day when the road contactors came into the slum and started demolishing the structures there. No one could say anything as they had papers with signatures on it saying that some rich businessman had bought the land and was going to build some hotel there.

Now she was home less since a month and had to live on the pavement across the street of the big building. Her income had all gone with a month on the streetsa dn buying berad from the tea stall . The sweeping job was gone with the people wanting a younger person for the job . her limbs had not allowed her to work for longer hours as age caught up with her.

She had to start foraging for food from the bins near the hotels. All this lead to her body yeilding to the cold, starvation and grew weaker day by day. She had now only one torn blanket to cover herself with on thestreet at the nights.

This particular night was extremely cold, with the chilling wind blowing, something that her blanket could not guard herself against. All night as the cold wind racked her old and tired body which desperately tried to fight and shivered in response.

Some how now it was staring to give up the fight. At the crack of the dawn, she tried to get up and walk in the hope of warming herself in the rising sunrays, she somehow knew she could keep up no more. She felt her legs collapse under her onto the wet and dirtyroad beside the following water from the drain and fell on to the ground strewn with pebbles. She coul not move even as she tried her last movement toward hope.

Her limbs had turned stone cold. Her eyes would not open and a few mins later she could not move.

She lay there awaiting some respite from the pain and the cold that racked her body in spasms either in the form of warmth or death. She was ready to welcome any of them now.

She felt herself growing numb and the sounds around her started to quieten, thelast sound she heard was the throb of an engine rushing past heras she felt life ebb away with the flutter of the hem of her sari with the breeze from the vehicle at her nkles. And then at least felt the cold and pain leave her that tormented her all night.

Love
Pro