I met Tulsabai when we stopped for tea at a roadside hotel in Ballapur, a seemingly non descript hamlet reached from Aurangabad off Sillod along the Jalgaon bypass road. We had left Aurangabad early that morning. I had sprinted past the bus in the baking heat upon seeing her transform from a dot cresting the swell in the road to an eye catching dash of colour approaching a barren tree, contrasting as sharply with the tree glinting beaten silver in the sun as the tree with an unusually blue sky.
There was scarcely a soul on the road except for the elderly woman in sari walking down the stretch balancing an empty pot on her head. Only a compelling reason could press legs out in the scorching heat. Her steps were slow and measured. She would turn her head every once in a while to watch for the occasional heavy vehicle coming up from behind her.
She told me she was headed to a roadside hotel "owned by a Marwari" some distance down the road to wash dishes at the hotel before filling up the pot with water the owner spared her before trudging back home.
Behind her, the barren tree reached up to the skies, and while its branches, reminding of upturned hands beseeching the heavens for mercy, sought succour in the pleasing blue they however wished for clouds to come floating by.
In the backdrop of the sky whose alluring blue reminded me of faraway oceans staring back from covers of glossy travel magazines strategically placed in air-conditioned book shops, I found the stark contrast of spare, leafless branches with Tulsabai’s clothes worn from use, poignant.
At least I had an illusion to fall back on. She had none.
There was scarcely a soul on the road except for the elderly woman in sari walking down the stretch balancing an empty pot on her head. Only a compelling reason could press legs out in the scorching heat. Her steps were slow and measured. She would turn her head every once in a while to watch for the occasional heavy vehicle coming up from behind her.
She told me she was headed to a roadside hotel "owned by a Marwari" some distance down the road to wash dishes at the hotel before filling up the pot with water the owner spared her before trudging back home.
Behind her, the barren tree reached up to the skies, and while its branches, reminding of upturned hands beseeching the heavens for mercy, sought succour in the pleasing blue they however wished for clouds to come floating by.
In the backdrop of the sky whose alluring blue reminded me of faraway oceans staring back from covers of glossy travel magazines strategically placed in air-conditioned book shops, I found the stark contrast of spare, leafless branches with Tulsabai’s clothes worn from use, poignant.
At least I had an illusion to fall back on. She had none.
