A Thoughtful Sunday!

Sunday mornings have always been lazy for me. I hate to run around and follow the daily schedule, which haunts me throughout the week. So, when I opened my eyes today, and found my mother smiling at me; I pulled the edge of her sari and asked her to sit beside me. This was the beginning of a chatting session that continued for nearly 1 hour. She talked about my father’s maternal family; which is referred as Mamabari in Bengali.

There will always be a member in your family, who would make you curious and for mine case, it is my grandma’s sister. The best person to tell me about her would have been my grandmother herself; but she is no more. So my resort was Ma, who went on sharing all the information she had about this woman. My grandmother comes from a well known family and her father was a renowned ophthalmologist in Motijheel, Dumdum. Mita Dida, my curiosity, is the youngest of all her siblings. She was loved by all but the albino problem made her life more complicated.

My grandmother said to Ma that she was a very beautiful lady and could even play piano. Well, neither can I doubt that because even today, behind the wrinkles and albino patches, her eyes glow reflecting the long lost beauty. I could clearly visualize, how wonderful the scene would have been where a charming lady sitting on a stool and playing a piano...!! 

She was married off to a lawyer and that is when her future took a turn. May be she was suffering from a depression for long, which pushed her away from the normal walks of life. There were signs of abnormality in her behavior. My mother said, her husband was a pretty talented guy. On my parent’s first visit after marriage, he even narrated a poem. But my mother found him acting in a very different manner while talking to Mita Dida and trying to change some of her gesture, which she kept on doing deliberately. 

Now comes the hardest part, which is still gloomy! As per my grandmother, Mita Dida had a daughter. But something happened and the child died. Things became rough and her husband left her. To be more precise, Mita Dida was cheated and left penniless. No one ever came across this man and his whereabouts.

It’s been years that I have met Mita Dida. The last time I saw her, she recognized me and was talking as a perfect normal individual. I remember she made me a raincoat stitching all the milk packets that she collected. It was funny but some creativity was still left in her. Well, there got to be something in a woman who knows how to play a piano during the 1930’s era.

May be I am exaggerating my thoughts. But how would be the life of a woman, who trusted a man and thought of living her life and then suddenly found herself lost? Then again, how would be the life of a man, who thought of sharing his life with the woman, who finally turned out to have an unbalanced state of mind? Who is right? The one who wants to live a life or one who wants to live a sound life?