THE CARDINAL SIN

The Old Lady

The old lady was sittng at the bus stop. She seemed to be stooping with age and its accompanying woes.She had rested her hands on the stick which she was holding before her.Her worn out yet fleshy hands showed that she had stopped working with them.The fingers had jagged nails which had lost their sheen and colour.Her chin she rested on the arch of her stick. Her mouth was a little agape and her looks intent. Her soft fleshy lips hanged loose.Along-side were her two grand children who sat quietly looking in the same direction as her's.They looked unkept with dishevelled hair. The boy was pale in complexion and morose while the girl was in her girlish spirits.The old lady was scanning every passing bus and very eagerlychecking each passenger who stepped out of it but she could not see her son.He was not coming back from his work place for the last two days. After a long wait she pulled herself up and with the support of her stick hobbled a step ahead and then fell into a wobbly pace.She signalled the children to follow her .She looked a bit distraught but the children skipped away merrily and disappeared in the house after reaching it.It was a big house and seemed to have aged with use.The large and big rooms remained dim .Each niche had its own life.The floor was partially covered with mats and everybody sat on them.Only the grandma was given a special seating. Right now her eldest daughter -in-law was away to some other city where they had a small plot of land and she had gone to safeguard it from encroachment by getting a boundary wall built around it.Her husband could not do the needful since he didn't get leave from his office.The children were left in the care of their grandma, aunts and their father.But the old lady their grandma was implicitly more responsible for their welfare and safety.She was anxious when they were late from school .She insistently instructed her son to come home a little earlier so that the children were contained.But he could never make it.He always turned up late,although his job was such that he could very easily have come a lot earlier.She would question him ,though politely,about his late coming but he evaded it with his soft smile and charm which was always so charismatic.The children would already be sleeping when he reached home.And in the morning he left very early.It was a boon for the children.No-body nagged them for anything.Their mother they took as a big nuisance .She always looked harried and hassled and almost ran after them when they ignored her persistent calls. And now they went wild in the entire house and made merry.

It was now the second day when their father didn't turn up even during the night.The old lady enquired from his acquaintances but none gave her any clue.She knew the bus stand from where he took his bus and on the third day she along with the kids went to seek him out.He was the cupid sought out by the pretty damsels .He said that he was distraught by this entire scenerio and did not know how to disentangle himself from such piquant situations.Sometimes the tidings reached his wife and she would be crestfallen.She would question him and he would feign innocence and sometimes helplessness.His eternal charm rendered him guileless and then both of them would pray ardently to cure the girls of their vile infatuations.The old lady saw through these tricks but remained a mere observer of the entire drama..Her daughter-in-law was a gullible soul or she had put on the facade of gullibility in order to diffuse the mortal pain which his infidelity could inflict on her.

But now she was away.The old lady sighed and moaned on reaching home.She lit her evening diya near the window mumbling some prayer which was her daily ritual.The sky had turned inky.The stars twinkled far away and the moon peeped out of the flaky clouds looking so forlorn.She looked around to check the chidren.They were sleeping on the mat huddled together.The girl had matted hair and looked tired.The boy looked cherubic with curly hair and had fair complexion like his father. He was sleeping peacefully crouching his limbs together and lost to the vagaries of the grown-ups.