The Air-hostess

And while the girls her age tittle-tattled about the men she must have slept with, the younger ones from the neighborhood just forgot to breathe as she walked past them. For these little girls she was the quintessence of grace and beauty. And for the mothers; they were plain happy that their daughters, unlike her, were learning things at the kitchen and will someday be married off to good suitors. I was one of these little ones and never failed to notice the change in her perfume whenever she strolled past. She was never in a hurry. The girls talked about her block heels, her neatly wrapped sari and her mascara. But for me her smell was all that mattered.

I talk of the time, decades back, when the Indian sky was dominated by Indian Airlines alone. She was a flight attendant and reception to whose being was still prejudiced by society. She was a fatherless child and the only support to her aging mother.

Upon a chance meeting at the local grocery this time when I went home, I spared few moments, potato in hand, staring at her across the vegetables as she wordlessly filled her basket with capsicum. The hanging incandescent light bulbs all conspired to make her look serene. And her downward gaze conspired to hide her grief. She was a Hindu and though I strained my eye, I could not see a vermilion mark on her forehead. She has aged. Elegantly. But she was lifeless. Society took her life, long time back...