Durgamma stood before me, a far cry from her not very long ago bright and rather vivacious self. Her bare forehead told about her loss. I found it painful to look at her sans the usual blood red shindoor dot on her forehead. The red dot would essentially be the big size rupee coin of the seventies, that almost covered her entire seemingly small forehead. Moreover, it would often tragically bleed because of her profuse sweating trait and run down her flat nose like a flooded river satiating its thirsty tributaries.
That morning I had gone visiting my mom, and Durgamma too happened to be there. She had come to pay a customary visit to my mother. Three generations of her family had served ours.
The first generation were her parents who came in the early seventies from, if I’m not mistaken, Agasanahalli, in Karnataka. The illiterate but hardworking father was quickly employed as a cleaner in our newly founded transportation company, while the mother was absorbed to assist in the household chores. With time Durgamma’s father slowly progressed from being a cleaner to a well established driver, while the third generation carved a niche as sub contractors. From a rugged Mallappa of the sixties to a more suave and sophisticated Suresh with a graduate degree in the new millennium they had indeed come a long way. The third generation can converse not just in fluent Konkani but English as well and run an enterprise. Would a more Goan surname from the present ‘Harijan’ one make them any more Goan than that they already are?
As I stood wondering, Durgamma gently pulled me and held me close and the decades of absence between us evaporated. I could almost breathe in her fresh sweat as the moisture from her cheeks clung to mine. She held me afront to gaze at me, and I realised it was not sweat rather the tears that flowed from her aged eyes. She looked haggard and worn out. When our eyes met, it was meeting of two souls, class, caste and other societal construct erased and she pulled me into her arms as she use to when I was a kid. The initial temptation to clean off the moisture from my cheeks was crushed. The two of us stood there suspended in time, while my mother watched benevolently.
Durgamma, lowered herself on the ground and mumbled. She looked at me, she had my attention and though I could comprehend her pain, yet I failed to make sense of the words that were emitted between her sobs. I lowered myself and touched her gently on her shoulders. It was cancer, liver cancer she blurted. I sat uncertain as to what to do next, when the maid came with piping hot tea and idlis. I was thankful my mom had stepped in and permitted me to wriggle out of a very emotional situation.
Post tea, Durgamma had taken a good hold over herself and her sentiments. She asked rather cheerfully if I recalled how she had helped with my wedding preparations. I nodded sheepishly. She was always there for us, in our good and not so good moments that life threw at us and I was truly indebted to her and her families.
