She was alone and lost...sitting by the railways bridge pavement she looked around constantly for help...her eyes were swollen and went deep into the socket hole of her skull, as though she had not slept for days together...her legs were torn apart with cracks due to intense cold..Her face was droopy and sari draped with see through holes in between...
Every time I passed by her she looked down searching for something...she was not really begging but looking for something precious...This woman kept disturbing me everytime I walked the over head bridge at Kurla station...and then one day I decided to ask her if she needs any help...
She looked at me with her starry eyes...it was horrifying though, she glared and projected to me a side of her which was totally contradicting her attire and state...
Her name was Swati Mehta...she lived at Nariman Point for 27years with her husband and her son Rajan Mehta...in a 1500 sq ft house on a top floor that viewed the whole Queen’s necklace ....5years back when her husband died she was devastated and ran into depression for a couples of months...her son was 22 and was earning ransom in a business with his friend...she was not in a position to interact with anyone because all her life was dependent on her husband and suddenly after he hanged himself she could not believe anything around her...
Her son latter sent her on a spiritual tour to Varanasi in mid 2005 for 6months. But when she returned the world around her was so different that life became all the more difficult for her to cope up...
She said...Her son had sold her house to a Sindhi family 2 months back...he fled to New Jersey with his newly married wife and had left nothing back for his mother...she had nothing left with her and none of her family members where there in Mumbai...neighbours turned their faces and friends reacted as though they never knew her...
But I was still left unanswered with the search that she continued on the bridge...When I asked her about that she said she was searching for a number of things...she was searching for her lost fate, her son for whom she fought against all her family members...she was searching for acceptance,...she was searching for her love...
I left after listening to her story because I was almost in tears...how can a son betray his mother above all who lives with the pain of bearing a child...bringing him into this world...showing him the day and the night...feeding him...sitting by him when he is sick all night,...teaching him to walk with his first step...crying herself when he falls...crying with happiness on his first race...teaching him his initial alphabets...making up a new story just to put him happy in bed...eating half to give me a full dinner...and loving him boundlessly that he never cries in sorrow...
I have no words to say...just that “The hand that teaches you to walk also needs a hand to support as time flies”
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