An Extraordinary Woman

There is something extraordinary in the ordinary every day. The ordinariness is like the ordinary blue glass bangle on the arm of the woman. Her orange cotton saree, with thin and broad green lines for a border; the saree is raised above the ankles. The hair is pulled back into a ponytail with loose ringlets peeking out from near the temple. And at the forehead, a significant lock of hair rests.

                       A usual sight for a working woman in India. Nothing extraordinary. She pulls as much hair she can collect into the ponytail and lifts her saree up to avoid water soaking herself completely in her chores. Or to avoid stumble in her way she follows repeatedly while running inside her house: sometimes to fetch water from outside to inside, or to cook food, to serve food to her family members, or to arrange for water in her washroom for her family members. Seems like she does enough for the whole day, yet she was on my office premises now. She has been a regular sight for me for a few days now though I have still not been able to pinpoint the office she works in. Not that it is important to claim her extraordinariness. She is standing outside the chamber I am currently calling ‘mine’, holding onto the iron-grills with designer slits. Staring at something. She looks like one who could not be disturbed. Her line of sight is probably meeting the many vehicles stacked in the open space within the premise. 

Ironically, there is no parking area for the vehicles of the people who have offices on the premises. The premises wouldn’t make a proportionate impression on a visitor or a bystander as the significance it holds in regular public affairs. But, for the sake of the significance it holds, it needs a complete rejig or maybe a complete re-plantation. People may stop believing in the magic of the place otherwise. Appearance is tough! In countries with colonial hangovers, these buildings of significance control the degree of poshness, ‘opulence’, ‘classiness’. Even then, Thanks to the mandatory open area requirement, not everything is destroyed. It is the oxygen in the air that graciously offers up its space in the open area to these vehicles. Vehicles always seem to be overpouring the space to contain them within. And, some beauty indeed it presents. 

                           Like in Tetris, some are parked horizontally, some vertically, somewhere two vehicles would be parked parallel-y while being separated a little ahead and back by the paved space near the podium. Sometimes, four vehicles would form the ‘square’ in the game. One may wonder how did they clump into a square together in the first place and can not move at all now. How do the drivers intend so? And why? Do they not anticipate the problem? What would that possibly achieve, other than causing delays in pulling out and causing troubles to the riders? Or maybe the drivers like the pattern which is generated too much!

And, if the vehicles from the satellite offices would arrive the legitimate parking place would be the lovely, sleek street barely two hundred meters long. Capped by the office premise at one of its ends on one side. 

I break away from my self-absorption to watch her. But what is she thinking? With the biased, skewed perception, my mind alludes to the inequality in our lives, pitying, empathising and whatnot. But that speaks more of me than her. When I get over my egotism, I see the childish curiosity in her gaze. The attention span of a cocker-spaniel suddenly switches from one direction to the other while she scratches along her wrist then her temple and maybe yawns a bit as well.

                  Her skin collects into crumples near the upper cheek on both sides almost symmetrically. Yet the cheek stretches out to show she still has youth beating inside her. And, her ordinariness was brimming with the extraordinary. With bangle only in one hand, the cotton saree is wrapped around in a way that yells comfort must prevail. Prevail over the vanity of any sort. The saree with so many colours and no care for matches with her other articles of adornments. The simple chain around her neck which shines yellow hangs loosely near her breasts, which are carefully hidden inside the white blouse. The mask is pulled up nicely and not perfunctorily. It covers her mouth and her nose like it should, unlike the way it covers the mouth only as if it is the totem to stop one from speaking evil. She knows it is more than just a formality unlike the hooligans around who hustle and bully their way out of this legal requirement meant to save lives. A rebel in her own way, or just untouched with the skewered, crooked world and showcasing ‘the genuine article’. She is extraordinary. I know I can look at her many more times with the same amazement. And I am sure without any plans of my own, I would when I come across her tomorrow. Possibly.