I met Sunita today. It just happened that she was the only Indian face I had seen in three months in an alien Hong Kong office. She was brewing coffee as I went in the pantry to get one for myself. I hadn’t spoken to an Indian for a while and couldn’t resist my urge to introduce myself and know a little about her.
Well we got introduced and chatted for about five minutes when we decided we needed to get back to work with a pledge to have lunch together at a nearby Indian restaurant. And we landed to this nice little place called Bombay dreams in Central Hong Kong.
She seemed to be a fine lady with strong Indian leanings. Our conversation started with how Mumbai has changed over several years now and went on to what we did, how we came to Hong Kong, our families, our likes and dislikes etc … etc….
As enough is never enough, the talks of two Indians in a foreign land would have never ended. So we went ahead to help ourselves from the buffet lunch table. I noticed she picked up all vegetarian dishes. She was from Lucknow, the city of delicious kawabs. So my obvious next question was about her food likings, surprisingly we never discussed that given the fact that we had come for lunch.
Sunita’s facial expression did not change at all when she said in a matter of fact manner that she had given up on non-vegetarian food. She couldn’t help but add that she used to love them. And the inquisitive bastard that I am, couldn’t help resist myself from asking why?
She said, “Well, I am an Indian widow and Indian widows do not have non-vegetarian food.” I was a little shocked and words failed me for sometime. All her statements came back to me, “I live with my in-laws” – the general statement is “I live with my husband”, “My father in law works at JP Morgan” – the general statement is “he work at …..” and all the small talks that we had about her family and it never occurred to me that she did not speak about her husband at all.
I felt sorry to my self when I uttered the horribly often repeated line in the world, “I am so sorry to hear that.” She obviously said it’s okay. Sunita added, “I met him at Prudential six years ago and from the very beginning we started liking each other. After four months of courtship, Anand (her husband’s name) asked me to marry him and I instantly agreed. We had a very happy and successful marriage till the day we were driving to the Stanley beach when we met with this horrible accident.” She took a morsel and slowly chewed it as if in deep thought. I didn’t have the courage to interrupt her. After having some water, she continued, “You know Alok, no one can take away from me my loss. No one will ever know what I have lost. That box of sindoor (vermilion) is still lying on my dressing table. I haven’t thrown it off. It keeps me reminding of how his loss has robbed me of all the colours in my life. It’s not food that I hate him for leaving me alone …… It’s the legacy of white that he has left behind him, makes me yearn for him. With him he has taken away my pride ….. the pride his sindoor used to give me.”
I kept mum for sometimes. Didn’t know exactly how to react to this lady’s loss. No word would be enough and I definitely didn’t want to say “I am sorry” for nothing would have sounded more meaningless than that.
Well we got introduced and chatted for about five minutes when we decided we needed to get back to work with a pledge to have lunch together at a nearby Indian restaurant. And we landed to this nice little place called Bombay dreams in Central Hong Kong.
She seemed to be a fine lady with strong Indian leanings. Our conversation started with how Mumbai has changed over several years now and went on to what we did, how we came to Hong Kong, our families, our likes and dislikes etc … etc….
As enough is never enough, the talks of two Indians in a foreign land would have never ended. So we went ahead to help ourselves from the buffet lunch table. I noticed she picked up all vegetarian dishes. She was from Lucknow, the city of delicious kawabs. So my obvious next question was about her food likings, surprisingly we never discussed that given the fact that we had come for lunch.
Sunita’s facial expression did not change at all when she said in a matter of fact manner that she had given up on non-vegetarian food. She couldn’t help but add that she used to love them. And the inquisitive bastard that I am, couldn’t help resist myself from asking why?
She said, “Well, I am an Indian widow and Indian widows do not have non-vegetarian food.” I was a little shocked and words failed me for sometime. All her statements came back to me, “I live with my in-laws” – the general statement is “I live with my husband”, “My father in law works at JP Morgan” – the general statement is “he work at …..” and all the small talks that we had about her family and it never occurred to me that she did not speak about her husband at all.
I felt sorry to my self when I uttered the horribly often repeated line in the world, “I am so sorry to hear that.” She obviously said it’s okay. Sunita added, “I met him at Prudential six years ago and from the very beginning we started liking each other. After four months of courtship, Anand (her husband’s name) asked me to marry him and I instantly agreed. We had a very happy and successful marriage till the day we were driving to the Stanley beach when we met with this horrible accident.” She took a morsel and slowly chewed it as if in deep thought. I didn’t have the courage to interrupt her. After having some water, she continued, “You know Alok, no one can take away from me my loss. No one will ever know what I have lost. That box of sindoor (vermilion) is still lying on my dressing table. I haven’t thrown it off. It keeps me reminding of how his loss has robbed me of all the colours in my life. It’s not food that I hate him for leaving me alone …… It’s the legacy of white that he has left behind him, makes me yearn for him. With him he has taken away my pride ….. the pride his sindoor used to give me.”
I kept mum for sometimes. Didn’t know exactly how to react to this lady’s loss. No word would be enough and I definitely didn’t want to say “I am sorry” for nothing would have sounded more meaningless than that.
1 comment:
That's sad. Take her out to lunch whenever possible and try to be friends.
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