It was the beginning of summer vacation, and I had just returned home three days ago from boarding school. At that time, I was in sixth grade at an English-medium school, something every middle-class parent dreams of for their children. Our house was small, and it was just me, my mother, and my older sister living there. However, neither my mother nor my sister were around during the middle of that day. It was quiet, and I was alone at home.
On that particular day, I was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and blue striped cotton boxer shorts. I had nothing much to do, so I was simply roaming around the house, enjoying the solitude. There was something calming about being alone. It felt like I had all the freedom in the world.
It was a hot, sunny day, and I spent most of my time looking for something to occupy myself with. I decided to pass the time by gazing out of the window. That's when I saw her – an elderly woman walking slowly down the street. She was wearing a white sari, which seemed to glow under the harsh sunlight, and a bag was hanging from her left shoulder. She was using a wooden stick to help her walk.
It wasn't unusual to see elderly women wearing white saris in our neighborhood, but there was something different about this one. I couldn't explain why, but I found myself staring at her. She caught my attention in a way I hadn’t expected. She walked with a slow, deliberate pace, her back slightly hunched, and her head bowed down. I watched her for a few moments, feeling an inexplicable pull.
As she walked out of my view, I quickly ran to the door, eager to catch a glimpse of her again. I opened the door and, to my surprise, she was walking straight toward me. I froze for a moment, unsure of what to do. The woman had reached my front gate and was now standing right in front of me.
I couldn’t make out her face clearly because of how she was walking – her head was bowed low, and she had a hump on her back. Even though I tried to concentrate, her face remained unclear. It was as though she was deliberately hiding her face from me.
Standing in front of me, she didn’t speak a word. I asked, “Yes, ma’am, can I help you?” But she remained silent. She simply kept standing there, not moving, as though she was waiting for something.
After a long pause, the woman reached into her bag with her right hand and pulled out a small piece of white paper. She handed it to me without saying anything. I was surprised and confused. I took the paper from her, still trying to make sense of what was happening.
When I opened the paper, I noticed that it was written in a script I didn’t understand. It looked like either Assamese or Bengali, two languages I wasn't familiar with. I could recognize the shapes of the letters, but I couldn’t read a single word.
“I don’t understand this language,” I told her, showing her the paper.
She simply pointed to the paper, indicating that I should look again. There was something about her insistence that made me feel uncomfortable, but I decided to try again. As I looked at the paper once more, something changed. To my surprise, I noticed a few Hindi words in between the unfamiliar script.
One sentence stood out clearly: “Her son has cancer, and she needs financial help for his treatment.”
I read the sentence again, trying to process what I had just seen. My heart skipped a beat. I thought, “Do I have any money?” I realized that I had saved 200 rupees from my pocket money. It wasn’t a lot, but it was all I had.
For a moment, I stood there, torn between my conscience and my hesitation. I thought, “Should I give it to her?” My mind raced. Then I became selfish and told her, “No one is home right now, and I don’t have any money with me.”
She said nothing. She just took the paper back and started walking away. I watched her retreat, but something felt wrong. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. As she walked further away, I suddenly had a thought: “Money can be earned again, but a life can’t.”
That thought changed everything. I knew the money was in a tin box in my room. I quickly ran to open the box, grabbed the 200 rupees, and dashed out the door to give it to her. But when I reached the street, she was nowhere to be found. It was impossible. How could she disappear so quickly? She was an old woman, walking with a wooden stick. There was no way she could have moved that fast.
I stood in the street, trying to piece everything together. I thought of the houses nearby. There were only two close to mine. One was empty, as the family living there was away on vacation. The other house had been abandoned for years. I quickly realized that the woman couldn’t have entered either of those houses.
I ran down the street to the corner shop, where I thought I might find her. I asked the shopkeeper, my friend, if he had seen her, but he hadn’t. I then started asking people who passed by, but no one had seen her. It was like she had vanished into thin air.
I spent the next hour running up and down the street, hoping to find a trace of her, but there was nothing. My body was tired, and I was out of breath. I couldn’t understand what had happened. How could she have disappeared so quickly, and where did she go?
Finally, exhausted and frustrated, I gave up and entered the shop. My friend looked at me with a curious expression. “What happened?” he asked.
I sighed and explained the whole situation to him, but he just shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone like that,” he said.
I thought for a moment, and then a girl who lived on the other side of the street came into the shop. I asked her if she had seen the woman, but she didn’t know what I was talking about.
I spent the next hour asking every person who came into the shop, but no one had seen the old woman. It felt like a mystery I could never solve. Where had she gone? Who was she?
Eventually, I went back home, still thinking about the strange encounter. I never figured out who the woman was or how she disappeared. To this day, I can’t shake the feeling that I was part of something inexplicable, something beyond my understanding.
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