A Question of Degrees

She was squatting on her haunches outside my house as I drove home from work.  Her face was as wrinkled as a prune and her toothless mouth was stained bright red with beetel juice. Her sari was tattered and washed so often it was no longer possible to make out the print or the colour. Her blouse hung on her frail shoulders with all the elegance of a pillowcase. 

If I had to guess her age, I would have said she was about a hundred, but suffice to say she was really old. She was tiny and as she rose to her feet she was barely taller than when she had been when squatting. She was bent half over and looked so frail I felt self-consciously tall and well fed next to her. Her eyes were bright and sparkling and her mouth twisted into a smile as she saw me.

I stopped to find out what she wanted. I was tired and impatient after a long day at work, but I could not ignore her. I wanted to get it over with quickly. I assumed she wanted money for something or the other and I surreptitiously drew Rs. 100 from my bag and palmed it to save time.

“My daughter is going back to the village,” she said. “So, from tomorrow morning, I will be the one delivering the milk.” I raised my eyebrows. Her daughter, was a robust young woman who effortlessly carried and delivered the milk on time every morning. This old lady looked like she could barely stand. How would she deliver the milk? Would I have to make alternate arrangements?

I sighed and nodded. It was all I needed at the end of a bad day. Being a mother and an entrepreneur, juggling family and home was just not easy. To add to it, I had had a series of issues that day at work. One of my employees had quit without notice. I wished him well in his new job but wish he had had time to do a handover rather than leave us to wade through his disorganised files to understand the status of orders he was handling.

Another girl had called in sick. Her social media posts though indicated that she was well enough to post a series of selfies with some friends she was meeting. It had been a crucial day with a major project closing and I really needed all hands on deck to meet the deadlines. To add to it, I had been called in to school as my son had injured himself and my maid was off attending a wedding.

I decided to worry about the milk later and started towards the house, but the old woman laid a hand on my arm. She peered up at me and gave me a toothless grin. “Don’t worry. Your milk will be delivered when the clock strikes six, “she said. “After all, if the milk does not come on time, everything will get delayed. It is a very responsible job.”

I snorted. Responsible job? Did she think she was running an office? I was smugly aware of my education and exposure and what I believed to be a job of great responsibility. That made a difference to people’s life. But delivering milk?

I made to push past her, but her hand lingered on my arm. “You have many responsibilities,” she said. “You should not worry about the milk in the morning. That is my job, to ensure you don’t worry about milk.” Something in her words penetrated my smug attitude and self-absorption. What she said was a very intelligent remark. If only other people thought that way. I had spent the day chasing people who had not done their jobs… It was like the milk. I should not have to worry about it. It was their responsibility to get their jobs done.

For a second I glanced at her curiously, but although my mind registered her remarks, my eye only saw a tattered and frail woman chewing beetel. I nodded curtly and went into the house.

She was as good as her word. The milk arrived on time every day. In fact, it arrived even before I woke up and I could only guess at how that frail old woman delivered the milk. But it seemed trivial to me and I soon put her out of my mind.

I was reminded of her again early the following month when I saw her once more squatting on her haunches outside my house. She smiled her toothless beetel stained smile. It was time to collect payment for the coming month. I was reaching for my phone to calculate the amount when she surprised me with her quick mental math. I looked surprised and she told me gleefully, “I was always very good in maths. I was better than my brothers and always stood first in class.”

First in class? I had assumed she had never seen the inside of a school! I had assumed she was illiterate. She had shocked me. I had always prided myself on my empathy and sympathy or at least claimed to do so. And what had I done? I had dismissed her as an illiterate and incapable woman based solely on her appearance. I tried to make amends by smiling at her. I even extended a couple of hundred rupees extra as a tip and a salve to my conscience.

She refused it. That shook me again. What was it about this woman I wondered? Why did she have the potential to shake me up? To shock me? She smiled at my confusion and patted the ground next to her. I gingerly squatted on my haunches beside her. My calf muscles screamed for help. My visits to the gym had simply not prepared me for this, and yet she sat with as much ease as I sit on a recliner. I gave a sigh as my legs collapsed under me. She laughed – a soundless, toothless laugh. And then she told me her story.

She had been the only girl in a family of six children and right from the start she had been brilliant. She topped her class year after year. Her brothers had been indifferent at studies and one or two had even been held back. In fact, on two occasions she had been in the same class as her brother and had out performed him.

Although her parents talked about her academic prowess, it was more as an aberration – a freak. They would never take her studies seriously. She did not blame them. They were uneducated and uninformed. They loved her, cared for her and truly believed that marriage and family was best for her. When she finished school, she topped not just her class but the state.

She begged her parents to let her go to college and they did, because they loved her and could not deny her anything. So off she went to college to study maths. But it changed nothing. Her parents decided to look out for a match for her. A couple of years later, they found a boy from the deep south. A good family, a boy who ran his own mechanic shop. His family did not object to her being educated. Her marriage was fixed. When she insisted on finishing her degree, they agreed indulgently for after all it was only six more months.

She was married. It was a good marriage as marriages go. Her in-laws did not ill-treat her and her husband did not drink. They like her parents were good people but illiterate and simply could not understand her dreams to study and work. In the first few years she tried to keep herself informed.  – reading the paper, following the news. But over time, life took over. She had five children – four boys and one girl. But her daughter was nothing like her. She was quite happy to drop out of school and marry.

Between caring for her in-laws till they died and bringing up her children, the years passed by. Her education was a faint memory, her tattered text books stuffed into a trunk with other worthless possessions and her degree certificate folded over many times was stuffed into the back of a godrej almirah which was their proudest possession. As the children settled down, her husband fell ill, and she cared for him too. When he died, she had the choice of staying with any of her sons. They would have cared for her, but for once in her life, she wanted something more.

It was about then, that her daughter decided to give up the milk route she had and go back to the village. She seized the chance and took over the responsibility from her daughter. Her sons were aghast, but she had a job for the first time in her life. Not much of a job for a state rank holder and a graduate, but a job nonetheless. So, she had moved to the city and found a tiny place to stay and started delivering milk.

I listened spell-bound, my jaw dropping from sheer amazement. She smiled at me and rose lightly to her feet. I could barely rise. My legs were numb from sitting on the ground. I got up clumsily and stared at her. I did not know quite what to say. But she smiled and promising to deliver the milk on time, melted into the twilight.

I saw her many times after that, but she said nothing to me about this extraordinary tale. When I related it to my family they laughed at me for being gullible. I was not quite sure what to believe, but I treated her with greater respect when I did see her. Over the years, it all faded from my mind.

It was perhaps 15 years later that I woke up one morning and the milk had not been delivered yet. A short while later someone brought the news that she had died in her sleep. Since I had known her so long, I went to pay my respects to her. She lived in a tiny hut in a slum. But the exterior and interior were spotlessly clean and neatly organised. She looked even more frail in death than she had in life. The hut was bare except for a couple of utensils, a couple of tattered saris and a few newspapers. What drew my eyes though was a framed photo of her God hanging on the wall and next to it, in pride of place a tattered but genuine degree certificate.