Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
It had become a ritual of sorts for her to watch the old man and the dog. She found solace in seeing that something in her life stood upright as a fixture.
She waved goodbye to her daughter and turned back, walking with sluggish steps. The morning hours brimmed with chaos and it was only after she would send her daughter off to school, that she would feel exhaustion looming large over her like rivulets running down her back.
It had been only a month since they had moved to the new apartment, in the heart of the city. Everything looked alien to her and she yearned for a sense of familiarity to dawn upon her soon. She missed the window in her old house, which overlooked the green fields and the wooden almirah which had a yellow spot in the centre. The yellow spot at that time seemed to bother her. It appeared to botch the look of the otherwise new almirah. But, today as she piled her clothes in the new house, she missed the ‘yellow spot’. She missed a million other things. Most significantly, she missed her old space because it had become an extension of her.
Since the last couple of days, while dropping her daughter off at the society gates, she had noticed something. She had seen an old man clad in a lungi and a shirt sitting outside a small brick house which stood like a shadow lurking out of nowhere. The old man had the same steadfast expression each day and she saw him sitting at the same place each day, staring at the road listlessly. A street dog plonked nearby and he also had the same expression of nonchalance which seemed almost akin to the old man sitting next to him.
She found it queer to find him sitting in the same place each day. Every morning, she would look at the old man and the dog and walk away with laborious steps. At times, she lingered a little longer, but then pulled herself out of her reverie and moved on as she could not afford to hamper her daily schedule.
One morning as she strolled towards her house and craned her neck to find the now familiar sight, she was stunned. The old man was not on the chair where he sat everyday and the dog was also nowhere to be seen.
She was confounded for the rest of the day and could not focus on anything. She realized that it had become a pattern for her to see the man sitting in the quaint corner house. She had taken a fancy to this newfound pattern. It was but natural for her to fall for a pattern in the new place where she was struggling to find her footing.
Where was the old man today? May be he went out somewhere. It would have been good for him to break the monotony and drudgery and break free, even if for a day or two, she thought. She felt she was not so much different than the old man. Like him, she too wanted to be at the same place, looking at the same scene.
The next day, she woke up with a big smile on her face. She looked around and realized her new home was wonderful.
Life is not worth living if you tread a set pattern. It is the multitudes of vicissitudes that define life. She resolved she would fall in love with life each day and break the moulds of complacency and pattern. Patterns are delightful, only if they push you forward, not if they stagnate you. It had taken an old man and a dog to make her realize this.
Image source: By Yercaud-elango (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons, for representational purposes only.
Meha has worked as a Business Analyst in an elite IT firm and as a full time professor in management colleges. Having earned an MBA degree in Human Resource Management and an MA degree in read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
Please enter your email address