The Lonely Woman

The sound of lathi on a dry skinny body cracked the silence of the night. With a whimper, the old man pulled himself up and tried to walk. Weak limbs gave away as he stumbled and fell sprawling on the station floor. This might have been some usual occurrence to the policeman who kept moving, landing blows on one urchin after the other. Some under the influence of alcohol, some under a cloud of cannabis and many under the haze of hunger and thirst, the railway station is an open dormitory of the poor and needy...

She stood watching the distant darkness and stars twinkling in the night sky. She glanced absently at her Rolex that read 2.30 am. Two days ago, she was revered an angel everywhere she went. The wife of a wealthy industrialist, she had been pampered throughout her thirty odd years of existence. The thought of her husband brought a dry coarseness to her throat. She shifted her legs on the hard iron bench and shivered in the cool December air. The sudden loneliness and vacuum she felt on her husband's death had brought her here. It was not his death, but his continuous betrayals that filled her thoughts every minute. Girl after girl after girl, she had been hoping that he would stop somewhere. But he never got tired...She remembered the vivid fear that gripped his face as he fell towards the thundering train. He had died a painful death, ravaged by a roaring train in the same platform.It was suicide due to business loss, the story went and she was thankful. Yet, she felt pangs of guilt that mowed at her conscience night and day. She felt at a loss, figuring out why she must live, if alone she had to live...

The old man pulled himself up and staggered to the nearest bench. The lady seated on the other side caught his attention immediately. He held his wrinkled palm over his forehead and peered at her in the darkness. She seemed lost in her own thoughts. He neared her and extended his folded arms, silently begging.  She was so engrossed in her own thoughts that she failed to notice the old man. The old man was so weak to raise a voice and he staggered away slowly. Resting his aged limbs on the bench's other corner, he curiously looked at the woman in stoic silence.

She looked up suddenly, woken from her thoughts by the sudden shrill of the approaching train. The lights catching up on the tracks looked so beautiful to her. Only then did she notice the shriveled up and weak old man on the bench. His eyes were deep hollows and his body a mere shadow of what he must have been in his thirties. Gauging her line of thoughts, the old man again extended his palms, begging for money. She looked up, the headlights of the train just seemed to rest on the old man's extended palm for a split second and she felt a lightning jolt her insides. She had found the very reason for her existence that second, that instant. The old beggar never knew how much he changed her life forever. He looked with awe at the fresh notes that were glistening between his nimble fingers. She was at peace with herself, at last...