Have you ever wondered about the timing of incidents? Watch the way incidents take place, experiences are earned, lessons are learnt, you will realise that Nature neither too early, nor too late, and everything happens Right at the Right moment! It was Kolkata and it was winter! Two of them form a lovely combination. I, 18 then, was sitting on the green lash of Maidan with a book on my lap. I was deep inside the printed the words written by Wordsworth; suddenly I heard a square laughter behind me! Disturbed, I looked back and saw a woman with all her possible teeth out!

The woman was in her 50s, but her state was telling a different story. Un-oiled hair, black spots all over the face, a torn apart saree which once upon a time used to be white in colour, an old shawl over her! The quality of the shawl, however old, told me that someone has given her the shawl, as the saree was wearing indicated that someone who wears that kind of saree can’t afford that shawl!

She stretched her laughter and shouted, “Hey you monster, reading will reach you nowhere!”

Well, that was kind of a strange welcome I got from her, yet I survived with a notion that she either was a beggar or an insane lady or an insane beggar lady!

I mildly said, “Really?” Don’t know why I encouraged her to talk.

“Yes,” she grinned, “reading kills!”

“Why do you say so?” my voice was quite warm (surprisingly to me) as if I was a polite student learning from a teacher!

She sat beside me, her stinking aroma reached me, yet I survived that. She looked up at the clear sky and whispered, “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

I said, “Yes indeed, blue sky, sun, but what were you saying about reading?”

She didn’t bring her eyes down, as if searching something high on the zenith, “You know human being sometimes should be awarded with wings to soar, only sometimes, not always. Else, we will abuse it!”

No doubt that I was surprised by the philosophical tone of her voice (I have rarely met any beggar with philosophy), yet I continued, “Yeah, wings are necessary at times, but what about reading?”

She was indignant, “Uff! Poor boy, you seem to stick to one thing! Move on in life!” (Another philosophy!)

“Move on in life?” half uttered words came out through my throat!

She said, “Yeah, because if you don’t move ahead, past will pull you back, and all that past has to offer is pain!” (Another one!)

“Not always!” I objected!

“Hehe! I know you are talking about learning from the past mistakes na! huh! That’s a bloody pretension!”

I was shocked to the core, “pretension?” How could she speak of such a truth? How? I was desperate, but I realised that she will not answer any of my straight questions, that’s her self respect will come in between, that she doesn’t like to be probed, interrogated, questioned, or enquired. She hates all these, so I allowed her to float with herself! I provided a space…. I said what I utter to myself since my boyhood!.... “It’s all destined!”

She roared, “Nothing is destined, we commit mistake and put a tag of destiny to it. Is all the pain we get destined? Do you ever care how a mother feels? Back in a far village a poor woman looses her husband at the age of 29! She works like hell to give a prospect to her son, only son. She works in others’ households, in others fields, backyards. People give him dirty looks, yet she fights. A young widow, that too of lower caste, is like a public property! In the evening she comes back and watches her son studying under the oil lamp in her hut and tells herself, my son is going to go places. He reads and she smiles. His intellect outperforms, results are excellent, she is having blood cough, yet keeps it secret and tells herself, my son is going go places! One day he comes and says that for further studies he needs to go to town! That requires money! That too within a week, the mother sells the hut, gets a meager money, gives it on the palm of her son with a hope that one day this son will go places and will free the plot from the moneylender! She writes letters after letters in broken words to her son. The son replies to them once in 6 months, she proudly reads the same letter 10 times each day, he visits back once in a year, she jumps on her feet! But there always was one thing frequent… need of money… the poor mother doesn’t have anything else, sells her body, stamped as a prostitute by the villagers, none talks to him, only at some nights few wolves come, torture her, and warn that a word from her means her death! She keeps silent, yet one day she is thrown out of the village, none gives her anything! She presses the address of her son tight by her heart and comes to the town, after 2 days she finds out the place where her son used to stay! The people there tell her that there was a guy of that name two years ago, he got a job and went to some other city! She cries a lot, begs, pleads but none can give her the address of her son!!! Her son really went places! Now all she has is torture, by police, by the sweepers, by wolves on the street, dogs… one day when she was walking on the street with tears on her eyes, a small boy shouts behind her “Pagli, Pagli!”(Mad Woman!) and stones were thrown towards her!! She runs and runs and now tired, old, ruined mother, who gave her all to her beloved son, is NOTHING!

You call it destined? You mean to say Reading will take you to places!”

I hardly could breathe, she started laughing on my face… I was naked, I was haunted, I was tortured. I seized my book and ran.

I took the bus, train, her words echoing into my brain, I was shivering, I saw nothing!! I got down on my station, reached home, shouting, “Maa, Maa.”

My worried mom came out, I hugged her tightly and started crying, mother didn’t ask anything, just went on repeating, “Don’t worry my son, my baby, I’m here! Don’t worry!”