by Lakshmi Swami

Created on: August 27, 2009   Last Updated: February 02, 2012

It was Saturday afternoon. I stopped at  the stop sign as usual. I saw an old woman with a placard “I need help “hanging around her neck.  I was curious to know about her because it was a cold afternoon, very breezy and she didn’t have much protection against the cold. I moved my car to the shoulder area.

 I tried to get a clear peep over her face. She seemed to me familiar. It was not polite for me to look closer. She was shivering. I put a blanket around pulled a ten dollar bill and put it in her hands and never stopped to watch her reaction. I could see in the side mirror that she wanted to talk to me. I ignored.

I reached home after parking my car in the garage. I opened my door of my apartment. I shut the door behind me and I heard the door bell ringing. This was rather unexpected. I was about to change my dress. I proceeded to my door but hesitated.

I proceeded towards my bedroom when I heard the ring again.  This time I opened the door. I was very pleasantly shocked. She was very attractively dressed and stood right in front of me with an enrapturing smile. But I don’t know her nor would I like to.

I have come to a strange land and I don’t know the type of people living around me. I was therefore cautious in my approach.  She said she knew about me much before from her brother.  She told me that she knew me through her brother who said was my friend. I don’t know anything about her brother.

She said at length that she wanted to marry me.  She said that I could take some time and decide.  I was very much confused. I never saw her brother nor did I ever meet him. 

The next week began. I was returning from office and it was late in the afternoon. The lady was there again. She stopped me at the same stop sign.  She asked me if she could sit with me. I couldn’t deny as she was a lady and that too an Indian.

She was about to relate the hidden secrets as she began. I steadied my steering and took a direction spontaneously on the wrong side of the road    I found a lot of similarity between the two strange women I had met one here in the car and another in my flat.

I turned to listen to her and to my shock  she was not there. I slowed down the car. I began to perspire as she disappeared from a speeding car. I was unable to understand the connection between these two strikingly same features.

I came to my flat and opened the door and found the woman coming to greet me. It was so confusing. The old lady, on the first day, the same lady looking different and looking much younger on the other day , the lady in the flat knocking at the door and now sitting in the flat before I unlocked- flabbergasting.

I didn’t wait and turned back   straight to the airport to go back to my country.

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