Does reel life imitate real life ? or vice versa..
She was so vibrant. So full of life. Not that she hadn't had a fair share of the knocks life doles out to some few of us. Her son was the elder of her two children. A bright child, if born differantly abled. Deaf and dumb. Her young daughter,a veritable live wire. They went to the best of schools, and caring parents always make a world of difference to the lives of their young.
I met her when she inaugurated her beauty parlour, within the premises of her building. In partnership with her good friend, it was a roaring success right from the first day. Each time I went to her parlour, I found her aglow with her new found success. Animatedly she would attend to her clients, winning them over with her own charm and beauty. Oh yes. Destiny was indeed kind to her. But maybe it is a crime to be so happy.
A good two months elapsed before I was able to visit the parlour. She was nowhere to be seen. New faces greeted me, and on asking I was told that she was in 'Iddat', the four month long confinement for a muslim widow on the death of her husband. Shocked I went to see her. Her world lay in shreds around her. The ebullient young woman I had known had gone. In her place, sat a small figure, her poise broken, her wide, usually sparkling eyes, full of despair, a world of pain in them. She told me that not only had her husband died suddenly, her daughter had been expelled from school. The child had slowly become so engrossed with the makeovers happening in the parlour, she had lost interest in her studies and failed the year. What with her dad's death, she was shattered and was adamant that she didn't want to go back to school.
This turn of fate, how could it be so cruel. So young, too young for all the burdens she would now have to shoulder, I brooded. When I, an outsider, was so devastated for her, how would she cope, I wondered.
Time flew, I spoke to her occasionally on the phone, helpless and angry that no one could do more.
Busy with my chores, I was startled when my neighbour, a young girl, burst in thru my door. "Did you hear what happened," she demanded to know. Sweating profusely, in a state of panic, she bliurted out, "She's dead. Murdered ! The lady at the parlour," Sinking on to the nearest chair, hoping that there was some mistake, some horrendous mistake, I heard her out.
She had gone that morning to the parlour, a little early. What greeted her was the sight of blood. Blood that had blazed a red trail, down the stairs. Policemen swarmed all over the place. Later I came to know that indeed she had been murdered. Alone in the morning, she had opened the door, to let in her husband's friend and business partner, someone she trusted. He had been trying to negotiate the sale of a piece of land that she refused to sell. In a frenzied spell of madness, he had hacked her, thirty five times, with a kitchen knife, in the presence of her daughter. She had managed with a last herculean dying effort, to sweep her child out of the door. By the time the benumbed child could fetch help, she was dead. Coming back to his senses over her inanimate lifeless body, her murderer, knowing he would pay for his crime, had cut his own neck.
With shell shocked grief I heard the sordid saga. Worried about the children, specially her daughter, I learnt that she had been sent to England to her aunts' home. A new life would help, but would her little soul ever heal ? I wondered. How had her destiny run amok like this.
She was so vibrant. So full of life. Not that she hadn't had a fair share of the knocks life doles out to some few of us. Her son was the elder of her two children. A bright child, if born differantly abled. Deaf and dumb. Her young daughter,a veritable live wire. They went to the best of schools, and caring parents always make a world of difference to the lives of their young.
I met her when she inaugurated her beauty parlour, within the premises of her building. In partnership with her good friend, it was a roaring success right from the first day. Each time I went to her parlour, I found her aglow with her new found success. Animatedly she would attend to her clients, winning them over with her own charm and beauty. Oh yes. Destiny was indeed kind to her. But maybe it is a crime to be so happy.
A good two months elapsed before I was able to visit the parlour. She was nowhere to be seen. New faces greeted me, and on asking I was told that she was in 'Iddat', the four month long confinement for a muslim widow on the death of her husband. Shocked I went to see her. Her world lay in shreds around her. The ebullient young woman I had known had gone. In her place, sat a small figure, her poise broken, her wide, usually sparkling eyes, full of despair, a world of pain in them. She told me that not only had her husband died suddenly, her daughter had been expelled from school. The child had slowly become so engrossed with the makeovers happening in the parlour, she had lost interest in her studies and failed the year. What with her dad's death, she was shattered and was adamant that she didn't want to go back to school.
This turn of fate, how could it be so cruel. So young, too young for all the burdens she would now have to shoulder, I brooded. When I, an outsider, was so devastated for her, how would she cope, I wondered.
Time flew, I spoke to her occasionally on the phone, helpless and angry that no one could do more.
Busy with my chores, I was startled when my neighbour, a young girl, burst in thru my door. "Did you hear what happened," she demanded to know. Sweating profusely, in a state of panic, she bliurted out, "She's dead. Murdered ! The lady at the parlour," Sinking on to the nearest chair, hoping that there was some mistake, some horrendous mistake, I heard her out.
She had gone that morning to the parlour, a little early. What greeted her was the sight of blood. Blood that had blazed a red trail, down the stairs. Policemen swarmed all over the place. Later I came to know that indeed she had been murdered. Alone in the morning, she had opened the door, to let in her husband's friend and business partner, someone she trusted. He had been trying to negotiate the sale of a piece of land that she refused to sell. In a frenzied spell of madness, he had hacked her, thirty five times, with a kitchen knife, in the presence of her daughter. She had managed with a last herculean dying effort, to sweep her child out of the door. By the time the benumbed child could fetch help, she was dead. Coming back to his senses over her inanimate lifeless body, her murderer, knowing he would pay for his crime, had cut his own neck.
With shell shocked grief I heard the sordid saga. Worried about the children, specially her daughter, I learnt that she had been sent to England to her aunts' home. A new life would help, but would her little soul ever heal ? I wondered. How had her destiny run amok like this.
how life changes in a snap..
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