Two more years

Alpu is a charming woman with dark brown skin and a bright smile. She has been cooking for me for the past 5 years. In this city, she is my friend and family. I am not sure if I too am her friend and her family. She doesn't ask me any questions about my work ever, nor about my friends. Yet, she comes to know if I have had a bad day.

Sometimes I indulge her by asking her about her life. She is married and has three sons. The eldest is studying in a college. The younger ones are in school. Her husband developed brain tumor some years ago but it was successfully removed. Alpu works in four other houses besides mine. Her husband cannot work in sun anymore so he travels in search of labour work where he can dodge the sun. These days he is in Kerela.

Alpu lives in a rented house which is a small shanty in a smelly lane where I happened to go once in all these five years of my knowing her. She was shocked to see me as I grinned at her little ones. The children were watching a small TV that I had given her after having used it for seven years. She gladly took it, like she took the computer monitor, keyboard, mouse and a corrupt mobile phone. She got all of them repaired.

On Sundays when I am rather unoccupied, she stands by the kitchen door and speaks to me. She smiles as she talks about her eldest son who she says is quite bright. She laments that her middle one is not interested in studies at all, instead likes to dance on bollywood songs.

She hopes that her eldest will get a good job after his graduation. Till then, she is ready to toil. Her husband sometimes gets disheartened when contractors cheat him off his money but she doesn't give up. She comes everyday with a bright smile and wakes me up with a cup of elachi tea in the morning.

There are days when she gets uncertain about her financial security. Monthly groceries, children's school fees, her husbands quarterly CT scans and increasing rent... The other day she told me how municipality was flattening out slums. She feared she would have to leave soon. I asked her looking up from my laptop, "Where will you go?" She didn't know. She said perhaps she'd have to go to her village.

Her village in Bengal is a small hamlet that doesn't have any decent schools, leave alone colleges. Alpu's eldest has just joined first year of college. She is anxiously hoping that after two years, the son would turn around the life of the family.

Alpu's husband has been away for the last three months. She has been battling the monsoon of Mumbai all alone. I ask her how she manages to lie in a pool of water with her mattress getting wet.

She smiles at me and says, "Two more years."