Sea Sights

My office overlooks the sea. I have a seat next to the floor to ceiling (almost!) glass windows and I can see the shimmering waters in the afternoon sunlight. The waters get dark as the sun goes down and then I can’t see it anymore. Most days the sun is beating down too hot and I am forced to draw the wooden screens down.

When my office shifted to this location offering an amazing view of the sea, I was caught by the newness of it. Every few minutes I would shift my gaze from the computer to the sea and watch its ceaseless movement. When the newness wore off, I forgot to pull the screens up once I had pulled them down.

Two days ago I was traveling to work by train, as usual. Seated opposite me was this beautiful elderly woman. Her skin was like cream that settles down once milk has boiled and if you were to gently blow on it, it creases. Well, that’s how her skin looked. Lovingly creased over time. She wore a white sari and had glasses which were secured with a thick white thread running to the back of her head. None of these caught my eyes at first. What did were the four pink glass bangles that she wore on each hand. I have rarely seen an elderly woman with glass bangles. Usually, it is some metal or the other.

I saw the grandma (for sure, she was that) look out alternately from the window and then crane over a lady seated beside her and look through the door as the train halted between stations. She was a newcomer to the city. When the compartment emptied out and there were just the three of us, I asked the lady who grandma was. She said, “My mother. She has come from Agra.”

I asked grandma, “Do you like the city?” She shook her head. “No. I don’t like it.” Her daughter interjected, “This is her first visit here. I have been married for over 15 years but she does not like to come over, for she considers it a sin to stay in my house as I am her daughter. She lives with my brothers in Agra.” Amazed, I asked grandma, “Why do you say that?” She was loath to explain. “It is a sin,” she replied. “I just want to go back to Agra soon for I don’t want to die here. My soul will not rest in peace if I die at my daughter’s house.” I said, “You surely can’t believe that.” Grandma would not budge from her way of thinking. “I am 85 years now. I will die soon. It is a sin for me to die in my daughter’s home,” she repeated.

It was pouring outside. I wondered aloud where grandma and her daughter were going in this dreary weather. Her daughter said, “Mother has been here for a fortnight. She came here for treatment, which finished yesterday. I have been asking her, since the day she came, to see some sights in the city. She has consistently refused. Last night she said, `I want to see the sea’. So we are taking her today as she is going back to Agra tomorrow.”

The mother daughter duo and the son-in-law traveling in another compartment were making a journey of over an hour and half so that grandma could see the sea. I asked grandma, “Why do you want to see the sea?” She looked at me and smiled for the first time. “I rarely get to see it in Agra.”

Since that day, I rarely forget to pull the shutters up at sundown…