This incident took place when I was a ninth-grade student. It was winter. Dense fog covered everything. Everyone was shivering from the cold. My father had ordered me to bring toothpaste from the market. I took my bicycle out and started cleaning it with an old cloth.
Just then, my father came outside and said to me, “Son! If you don’t clean your bicycle today, it won’t work.”
“I’m going, Father,” I replied, and then I took my beloved bicycle to the road. At that moment, a man about twenty-five or twenty-six years old passed by me with an old woman sitting behind him on his bicycle. Since he was the only one going past me, I still remember his and the old woman’s faces.
I followed him closely. Following that man, I reached the market. I stopped at the shop where I often bought things, but he continued ahead.
A little while later, I returned home with the toothpaste and then started preparing to go to school. My school is fourteen and a half kilometers away from my home. I used to go to school by taxi. The name of my school is Goswami Tulsidas Intermediate College, which is located in Padrauna city.
I put on my school uniform, picked up my bag, and started waiting outside for a taxi. After a little while, I saw a taxi coming. I waved my hand to signal it to stop. When the taxi stopped, I got in, and it started moving. On the way, there was a place called Lakshmipur where a large crowd had gathered. Since the crowd was standing on the road, the taxi driver stopped the vehicle.
Upon looking closely, I realized that this was the same old woman I had seen some time ago with that young man. When I asked, people were telling her story like this.
Perhaps her son was taking her out for a walk. Stopping at this place, he might have said to his mother, “Mom, you sit here by the edge, I will bring you something to eat.”
The old woman signaled that it was fine. And her son turned his bicycle around and left.
Now, quite some time had passed, but he had not returned. The old woman could not speak, and she was quite old. People wanted to know where her home was, but no one could find out. Some people mentioned several village names, but each time she shook her head in denial.
Slowly, the crowd that had gathered there dispersed. Our taxi also started moving. I kept thinking for a long time about what might happen to that old woman in this cold. Upon reaching school, I forgot about it.
However, while leaving school in the evening, I suddenly remembered the morning incident. I got into a taxi and headed home. On the way, I saw that old woman again; she was still sitting there. A little distance away, some people were building a house out of straw. The taxi passed that place very quickly. But I started to think that perhaps her son had not returned. Maybe those people were building a house for the old woman.
Upon reaching home, I took my bicycle without eating and headed towards the place where I had seen the old woman. After half an hour, I arrived there. I saw that the straw house was now ready, and two people were taking the old woman into that house. Many people were talking about various things. Some speculated that perhaps her son had grown tired of her and left her there. The number of people present led to a variety of assumptions.
The people around would bring her food and water. Whenever I went to or came back from school, I would see that old woman sitting by the door. It seemed as if she was certain that her son would come to take her one day.
Time has a way of moving on. The winters passed, the summer season arrived, and then the rains, but the old woman’s wait did not end. She continued to sit there by the door, waiting. In the tenth grade, I started living in the same city. I focused all my attention on my studies. Yes, sometimes I felt like bathing in the rain. The rainy season also passed.
The month of cold began. It was January. The cold was biting. School was closed. When my father ordered me to come home, I took a taxi and set off. After some time, I passed by that place again; the small house was still there, but the old woman was nowhere to be seen.
I asked the driver, “Hey Mahesh Uncle, I don’t see that old woman who used to live here?”
Mahesh Uncle replied, “Child, that old woman has died. Everyone came together and cremated her.”
I felt a great sadness. I remembered her wait that never seemed to end. What would have happened if her son had come to take her? Are people really that heartless?
Today, years later, whenever I pass that way, I feel as if that old mother is still sitting there, waiting for her son.
