I met her when she was staring from the window in her small kitchen, looking outside, wondering why I was staring inside her house, from that little window hidden behind the tree branches.
She came outside and noticed I was taking a picture, her forehead with wrinkles, she asked numerous questions to quench her curiosity and came closer, just to say that there is another old mansion in the street for me to capture. She asked why I was holding a camera and slowly invited me inside her house and even offered me some tea.
She was there when I was walking by myself in the bazaar crowded with men. She spotted me, came closer, and tried to know me more. With a silent warning to stay safe and made me sure to take care of myself there.
She was there at the Tibetan market when I was alone for the first time. With her quirky earrings at her stall of woolen wears. Noticing the camera in my hand, she started the conversation with question marks in the end. Offered me ‘Chowmein’ in her lunch break and told me about her daughter who was in Tibet. Now every time I go there she calls me by my new name, which is ‘camera wali ladki’.
She was there in the girl with an alluring spark in her eyes. When she smiled, I could hear more than her words. She showed me the best woolen shirts and suggested which suited me more. I bought a jacket from her and now I think of that spark in her smile every time I wear it.
I saw her sitting outside her verandah all alone, having her kids and husband at work, she smiled with her head covered in a saree. She asked me to take her picture and gave a shy smile.
She was there as an old lady with six toes. A small kitchen space where she was cooking outside her house. I can’t forget the efforts her husband made on her idea of offering me some mulberries from the tree outside her house. That bowl full of mulberries was a straight trip to my childhood.
I saw the face covered with wrinkles one day. Trying to climb the those three steps to her house. Small and sculpted of mud walls. The feeling, which I’m sure I will fail to describe. She who I considered to be truly brave- to be working and living all by herself at her age.
She is everywhere I go.
Different faces, same story.
Strangers, but they make me feel
As if I know them since a very long time.