Monday, November 7, 2016

Diary - Day 19

Guilty yet again, for 2 days of not showing up. Same excuse - work. But what I'm beginning to like is feeling the need to come back here to type out. Day after day. Okay, day after every two days.

I've learnt that a 19 year old girl who happens to be my apartment watchman's cousin from his village died less than a week ago. I remember her as a maid working for our neighbour whose broomstick was nonchalantly generous to go beyond the neighbour's and swept a part of our house's frontal area too.

I've heard some rueful tales about her sorry state, her increasing illness and her losing battle against a bigger disease she had been fighting since birth - poverty. She had moved to Hyderabad in pursuit of moderate education while her stay was guaranteed at the watchman's & she worked in few houses during the evenings to earn some money - from which she had to send some back to her parents in the village. It was probably her way of contributing to her dysfunctional family - damaged because of a farmer being its breadwinner.

Apparently she had battled TB before she lost to it. But the regular intervention of money, or its dearth, had her treatment ineffective because of irregular visits paid to doctors and pharma stores. And she died. On a nondescript evening, she drew her last gasp

Nothing remarkable about her life; or perhaps she wasn't given a shot at life to make it meaningful (I doubt if the word 'meaningful' holds any meaning here) in her own right. She may not have ended up as a Sania Mirza or a Romila Thapar but she could have had the experience of a life lived to a considerable extent. 19 is too sorry a number to call it a long-lived life.

P.S: Contrary to by ruing in my previous post, Tehran Cafe near Secretariat is unscathed and functioning like it has always functioned.  

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