Life has been a struggle, always a meager story, stretching to make ends meet. The hope was to educate the boys enough so that they can leave the daily wage labour to have some desk job. That way she can get rid of the drinking habit that gets into every laborer to with stand body pain, as her husband and his friends.
She did the vegetable vending, and odd jobs of a maid servant. She would have enjoyed life except for the habitual drinking haits of the male she had to withstand. Even her father did so.
But she heard from the neighboring ladies that jobs have been disappearing because the country is in a dire state. She had seen the long queues of demonetization and the cash crunch that time. But she expected to get Rs. 15 lakh in her account in lieu if that; although it did appear as a wild dream. but everybody talked.
It has been nearly 2 years. She was upset. Everybody seemed to be upset as the onion prrice shoot up. She knew for sure that things are not okay. The she heard there has been an act with which she could become homeless because she was a muslim, But her Hindu friends also look worried. They heard that the money was given to few rich. The little that is left, is now being wasted in trifle things like a new controversial act.
She was feeling lost. Even the men, appeared clueless even after gulping down a full bottle. She knew that this desperation soon will capture her sons. So she joined the group which went to Shaheen bagh to sit in protest. In the morning she brought vegetables to the 20 families she supplied daily green, and washed utensils at few others, Eve her land ladies came to sit at the protest. The same women,, who used to rancor at a little delay of hers, appear okay with the timing she had chosen. She wondered, if their reason was the same as hers.
Why the women had to suffer if the country undergoes bad time? Why the rulers do not seem to understand the plight of women who are in charge of running a household? This time, she hears that the women are more and more unsafe. She wondered why the old sadhus are getting into misbehaving the girls and the women. May be Kalyug – she thought.
And she has been there for the last 30 days. Her worry has been shared by many others. She does not understand if the worries have been increasing by day, because they talk of different things every other day. People have bee killed and their property have been ransacked, and girls were rapes she shuddered when she heard about all these.
She continues to sit. The people who are responsible must have been from good families to have reached such positions. What more will they get if the little assets of the poor get snatched? All these are beyond her logic. Although few elderly ladies have been vehemently protesting about the possible rootlessness, her worries even beyond all that.