The Intimacy of Loss by Poornima Manco EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Poornima Manco
- Language: English
- Genre: Literary Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 3.2 MB
- Page: 210
- Price: Free
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I was fifteen when I first saw her. She had a broom in one
hand and was sweeping the street with great gusto. A street
sweeper with style, I observed to myself as I shifted my
satchel from one shoulder to the other. Upon getting closer to
her, I noticed how odd her eyes were. One was brown and the
other grey. Her hair had been pulled back into a messy bun,
and several bangles jangled on her wrists. Her salwar kameez
1had seen better days, the pattern and colour having faded into
a murky grey.
I walked by the side of the road, but in the years since this
particular part of the colony had been conceived, the roads had
been widened to accommodate the increasing traffic, and now
the distance between the front gates of the houses that flanked
the road, and the road itself, had shrunk considerably. In
addition to that were the trees planted at twenty-feet intervals,
which made walking as interesting as an obstacle course.
You’d walk for a bit on the dusty sidewalk, then step onto the
road to avoid the tree, and then step back onto the dusty
sidewalk to avoid the oncoming traffic. It was all second
nature to me now, and I did it unthinkingly, my mind
wandering, my eyes alert but sometimes unseeing.
This strange woman I did see. And I could see that the dust
and the scraps on the street were just being swept from one
side to the other, without much cleaning being accomplished.
At one point she stopped and broke into a song, using the long
handle of the broom like a microphone.
“Who on earth is this woman?” I whispered to Vandana,
my school mate who was just about catching up with me.
“Oh, she’s the new sweeper woman, who’s been employed
by the Municipality. I hear she’s quite mad.”
“Then why employ her?”
“Some sort of initiative to help underprivileged women.
My mother said that the Women’s Society was adamant that
they help battered, abused and disabled women.”
I knew that Mrs Mehta, the wife of the Neighbourhood
Association’s (NA’s) chairman was a part of the ‘WomSoc’, as
they called themselves. No doubt she’d pushed the agenda
through. How our streets would be any cleaner with this
strange woman doing the honours, I couldn’t even begin to
ponder, nor did I have the energy or will to.
“She’s nicer than the last one.” Vandana whispered back,
as though reading my mind.
True enough, I thought. Tapeshwari had done little but
smoke her beedis 2and flirt with the vegetable vendor. At least
this one made a show of cleaning, however haphazard it was.
As we walked past her, she stopped singing and looked us
straight in the face and hissed. Startled, I stepped back. What
was wrong with her? She brandished her broom in my face
and sashayed away. Alarmed, I asked Vandana, “Did she just
hiss at us?”
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