What a woman!

This was written long ago, when I was a student and a daily commuter on the Howrah-Bandel rail network.

It wasn’t rush hour and so the train compartment was sparsely populated. My favourite window seat, however, was occupied by a woman. I sat down next to her hoping she would get off soon. She wore a cheap chiffon sari in a way that would be considered indecent on a younger body, especially if that body bore a college-goer’s bag. She had her possessions in a bag of a different kind – a worn out plastic carry-bag, which was tucked behind her like a cushion. She sat with her legs folded and a wad of velvety bindis-in-the-making on her lap. Somebody had neatly cut out rounded shapes on sheets of velvet and it was her job to carefully separate the bindis from the mother-sheet.

I don’t know why I smiled; perhaps the sight of the colourful array of bindis on her lap pleased me. She caught my smile and returned a shy one – “Utilizing the time,” she said, as if justifying the trivial nature of her work, “this is better than sitting idle while travelling, isn’t it so?”  I was obliged to give my approval, remembering that I too had planned to utilize the time reading by the window, with the wind on my face.

“Where are you going?” I asked hopefully, and she named a station far beyond my own destination, much to my dismay. Nevertheless, I felt obliged to be polite to her and so I kept my eyes glued to her lap, trying hard to keep my face straight so as not to show my indignation. She took it as a sign of interest in her bindis and encouraged by it, proudly showed me the brand name. “You must be familiar with it,” she said matter-of-factly. I wasn’t; I still cannot recall the brand name - not that I made any effort to remember. “It’s very popular in the market because of the glue," she continued. "Other bindis cannot be used more than once because the glue they use isn’t good enough. But these bindis are reusable. Moreover, the glue never causes any kind of skin irritation or eruption.”  

I listened without interest and she went on, “I make the glue myself. Many people have asked me for the formula, but I never give it to anyone. I make it at night and give it to the girls in the morning. I have a bindi-factory at home, you know; five girls work there.”

In spite of myself, I now started appreciating the entrepreneur in a woman of her stature (she appeared to be poor and uneducated). But a “bindi-factory!” One can hardly make a living out of it, that too after paying the wages, however paltry, of five girls. “Oh, but I have a job,” she said, as if I was stupid not to have guessed it already. “Do you know the ABC glass factory in Kolkata?” She did not wait for my answer (much to my relief as I had started feeling rather embarrassed at my poor general knowledge) and launched into another lengthy discourse: “The malik (proprietor of the glass factory) has a lot of faith and trust in me. I used to work as an ayah in his home, you know. He would not even talk to me at that time. Then one day what happened was, there was nobody at home except his wife and I; and madam was in the bathroom when the phone rang. So I had to pick up the phone, you see, and immediately realized that it was an important call for the malik. So I wrote down everything the caller said and when the malik came home, I read it out to him. He did not say anything, but he was impressed that I could read and write.” She was beaming by now. “And so he gave you a job in his factory,” I tried to conclude her story for her. “Yes,” she said, “but not before I bargained a good pay. After all, a job that involves reading and writing has a higher value than an ayah’s job, isn’t it so?” Once again, I had to agree with her. She smiled contentedly. “Education has immense value. I say so to my daughter. She goes to school, you know. She’ll soon get promoted to class six.”

We had travelled quite a distance and it was too late to start reading. So I encouraged her to talk some more. It was somewhat like reading a book, albeit not the one I had planned to read. “Better than sitting idle while travelling,” I mused.

“So who looks after the bindi-factory while you are away? - your husband or your daughter?”

“Oh no, no,” she replied. The bindi-factory looks after itself. The girls come early in the morning and leave before I do. My husband indeed! He’s a lout. He lives with another woman. Sometimes he comes to me to ask for money. I give him some money and send him away.” I noticed that she derived some satisfaction out of her charity.

“Why do you give him money, when he has deserted you?”

“After all he’s my husband and I’ve taken away his hotel too.”

“Hotel! You run a hotel too?”  - I knew that by hotel, she meant one of those roadside eateries. What surprised me was her enterprise.”

“No, I used to run it with my husband earlier. That is why when he left me, everyone in my locality supported my claim to the hotel. I fought for it tooth and nail –my brother came with me and we took possession of the hotel. My brother and his wife run the hotel now. They give me my dues every month.” I felt sure that she did not know or bother about any legal procedures in these matters. “And what if they cheat you?” I wanted to ask, but decided against it. Who could cheat such a woman?

“So you can get your food from there; you don’t have to cook for yourself,” I said in an effort to continue the conversation.“My daughter and I do our own cooking,” she replied, “Like today, upon reaching home, I shall put a pot of rice and vegetables on the oven to boil and run to market to get some materials and groceries.” This meant that by the time she sat down to eat, it would be well past lunchtime for most people. I looked out through the window to calculate how much longer it would take her to get home, when I realised with a gasp that I had reached my destination.

I took her leave in a hurry and got off the train, feeling quite perturbed. I had left a book unfinished and I would perhaps never again get a chance to finish it. I wanted to know her story from the beginning – how did she become an ayah from a hotelier, or a hotelier from an ayah? What was her daughter like? What were her plans for her future? Where could I get those bindis with her “magic” glue? And most important of all, how did she, a factory worker and owner of two businesses, a mother and home-maker, manage her time? She could give me a lesson time-management; but alas! That was not to be – I had not even learnt her name.