The Solitary Pursuit

Standing near the gate,in front of her big house Vanitha would sometimes watch the passersby .She would spend a few minutes in the morning, inclined to the gate of the house and was contented when she saw some familiar faces on the road. 
They would smile at her ;and as a courtesy, would ask her if she had her breakfast and coffee.

Reciprocating their smiles ,she would happily nod her head and ask them a few questions about their personal life or about their business, if they  happened to be regular peddlers passing in front of her house.

A few minutes ' conversation pleased both Vanitha and the passersby  .Sometimes she offered to buy some greens or betel leaves from them,and 
tender money without bargaining or higgling.

Sometimes some school going children in their school uniforms, passed by as she stood at the gate.

She would beckon them to come closer and offer them beautiful ,fresh rose's - red and yellow coloured , to the little girls on their way to school. She knew well that the girls preferred to take those roses to their teachers - favourite ones to win their goodwill.

On those days she got up late , she would in the afternoon after finishing all her work, sit in the gallery of the first floor and spend her time watching  known and unknown people, the strangers, passing in the street, and even beyond, where a distant hill stood.

She used to be happy if birds in flight appeared  in or around the little pond at the foot of the hill.
She was the sole owner and occupant of the house which she and her husband had set up , a couple of years after their marriage.

They lived together as a peace loving and friendly couple for quite some time. After some eight years of their married life he died a mysterious, fever  ridden death.

Sunil, that was how he was know to everyone including his wife Vanitha was a good natured man, as far as his business dealings were concerned.But he had a sloven, vicious private life. He spent most of his leisure - hours in the company of women. Besides he spent lavishly on gambling and other activities outside the domain of rational life.

This unharnessed life- style soon took him to the other end- hospitalisation, the ICU ,and monitored  death. Vanitha was left alone.

After a short spell of a kind of married life, infact she was now lonely from all sides. Besides she had crossed the probable midpoint in the the course of her void, unspirited life.

She developed a kind of feeling ,of being a non-entity . She always, constantly tried to find some way of giving a different direction to her life-a new dimension, a certain meaning for her callow life.

She had graduated from the Royal College at the time of her marriage ; and was essentially a product of  the pre- Independence India- at once conventional, traditional and submissive to social and religious voice. Because of her long , rather prolonged association with her maternal grandmother, she had developed a few sober psychological complexes, 
which were however neither detrimental ,nor ever of any use  to her . They were merely formations of sentiments, submission , obedience and sustained tolerance amid irate human beings.

Now that she was solitary and had none to master her, she felt baffled and nervous, more than free.
Generally people, especially  lonely women in her predicament are broken down and end up in an unnatural way.

But Vanitha had taken to reading, music, gardening and always thought of actively engaging her self in altruistic work.

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During some cold , winter afternoon hours , she would sit in her armed rocking chair looking at the distant hills and the pond while her hands would be busy knitting woollen wares like sweaters , hand gloves and headwear. And she did quite a  lot of them.

She had in mind, the pathetic ,the poverty stricken  people who always needed some help from all sides.It is needless to say that at all times of all civilizations, a section of the society will always lag behind ,not in  coping with progress, but falling short of the stretch of arm to reach the meagre line of normal human existence. They will always be much below the line of poverty.

Vanitha always thought about such destitute and needy people. In fact her grandmother had imbibed in her one such strange feeling to get disturbed if she came across the suffering, and struggling people.

For the purchase of wool, cloth and such materials ,or for the things of her daily requirements, she went to the market ,about 2 miles away from her house. Every Thursday was a weekly market day in the town. 
Vanitha avoided going out on those days. She didn't like to be in a throng.

Age had rendered her senile, feeble or physically weak ; but in spirit she was an invincible strong woman who never lost her confidence and temper.
In fact she infused confidence and strength in whomsoever she spoke with.
Thin or lean built of body, she was of medium height, if not tall .She chose to wear light coloured sarees ,preferably plain with wide floral  prints  along  the border  .

She didn't dye her hair though she was particular about oil bath and use of soap nut wash, with which her grandmother had habituated her.
It was almost a fortnightly ritual for her. The impact of her grandmother's  promptings, always remained with her till the end.

She kept the house very neat - everything in it's place and order as she had assigned  ;and was particular about clean air, copious light and comfortable place anywhere and everywhere in her house. She had a garden of her own, not very big, but lovely.

It added to the beauty of the house.She grafted and reared roses  of her choice coloured.
Besides she had many flowering shrubs and creepers in her garden, where she daily spent at least an hour watering the plants, de-weeding and cleaning.

She was equally particular about the interior decor of the house.
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To avoid her feeling of loneliness and to extend keeping contacts with the world at large she had installed her house with telephone connection and also the television with it's additional facilities. But she rarely ever used both the  means of contact with the outside world.
She also received letters though, she hardly wrote any.

One afternoon as she sat knitting wool, she received a letter from someone she hardly could remember. As she browsed through it, she was more  puzzled and knew not who it was.
She tried to remember all her select contacts in the town. She could not find out any association of the writer of the letter with the small organisations , social units and such other philanthropists she knew.

She used to visit certain organizations engaged in social work. There were the handicapped, the downtrodden, the destitute and the neglected orphans,who got regular contributions and all kinds of necessary materials from Vanitha at the end of every month. It was not in large quantities ; but yet she tried  her best to meet the mark of necessity. She was happy that she could do something for them after all.

But the  letter  she received ,showed no link with any one of them. In fact some unknown person had introduced herself in the letter to Vanitha and described her  precarious poverty ridden condition. She had also written that she needed some job to maintain her family -children, and the ailing husband.

Vanitha was pondering over the whole issue when somebody appeared at her gate and called out loudly to draw the attention.She  saw  a fat woman, probably in her 50's ,at the gate. When she was let in she touched the feet of Vanitha and repeated the contents
 of the letter the former had received that afternoon.

Vanitha, didn't know how to react ; but she offered some money and some provision of  victuals to the woman.
She flatly refused to take anything and began to speak in terms of high morals and excerpted philosophical  words ,and  asserted that she needed only work and would not take any undue help from anyone.She spoke so emphatically and in so convincing a manner , that Vanitha was carried away. She asked the latter, if she could stay in the house, and help her in her routine work.

She willingly  offered herself to be in household service of Vanitha.
She stayed with her till it was evening, trying to help her in whatever she did. Vanitha soon found that the woman was neither dexterous nor had any aptitude for any menial or exerting work.But just out of compassion and sympathy  she over-looked the latter's lapses.

Hardly some six weeks had gone, when to her dismay and shock Vanitha found that the woman had stopped coming to her house.

She soon discovered that the entire lot of her cash, jewellery , costly sarees and drapery  had vanished.Also some silver utensils and other household articles had disappeared.

Disappointed and frustrated she dropped the matter and forgot it.
The last thing she could do was taking legal action in such matters.

In her solitude she made the best use of her ability and talent. She was now proud of her colourful garden.

On her regular weekend visits to the old temple in the town, the priest who knew her since long ,always coaxed her to give away some flowers regularly from her garden, besides her several other regular offers at the temple.

At his specific request, she instantly agreed. And the priest everyday sent a florist woman of his familiarity, to pluck and fetch the fresh flowers from  Vanitha's garden.

In fact the greedy priest through the florist woman , devised to sell the lovely and rare coloured roses and other flowers , in front of the temple.He gave away a little share of the proceeds to the florist. On many occasions Vanitha saw ,and hence, deduced what the priest and the florist had been doing.

But she ignored the whole thing though she was amply upset.Added to these, were other frustrating disappointments which Vanitha by chance encountered.At the end of every month she used to carry, regularly small bundles of clothes,   sweaters  and  other  hosiery
knitwear,  she  had  made with her own hands.

She gave away these and such other useful things along with fruits and eatables to the inmates of orphanages and old- age homes she visited regularly.
She was happy after all over  what she could do for the destitute ,at least in this way. She was soon to be disappointed.

People who were managing the orphanages and old age homes with many attractive slogans and high philosophy, in fact turned out to be parasites,who swindle money from the gullible people like Vanitha.They sold away such collections and offers secretly outside and made their personal living and luxury out of such cruel proceeds.At this stage in her eighties, Vanitha found that there was something wrong either with herself or with the society around her.

She spent now thinking for many hours and days trying to understand the strange human nature.Her fine sensibility, learning and culture had taught her to extend her fellow feeling to every creature in the world, irrespective of background, creed, or caste. Now she was almost disillusioned at all such  happenings - and there were many at every stage of her life.

She constantly was worried about human nature and it's intricate, enigmatic dealings with one another.However, hard she thought, a  convincing answer could not be reached at. There was a point, a stage when she retracted herself from the external world and said to herself that the society or the world at  large has its own ends and means.

Nobody seems to care for the voice of true humanity: the voice of the  conscious mind .She asked herself in a low tone almost in a mutter:  'Don't they know that life is not a course for  just feeding the belly; that there is an agency invisible to govern and administer the soul..? '

In recent times there had been a few callers, either at her door or on her phones, trying to persuade her to join their social service network, or organisations and convert her  house into a centre for  such committed social activities. She evaded them, at first neglecting ; and later a little curtly she said  that she was not  interested in any such activity. 
She always kept thinking about such people. She wondered if people could not manage to live without ever pestering others.
 She had always known about the needy and the greedy people. But she could never draw the line of demarcation between them. 

Existence, she knew ,is the basic quest for every human being. But the limits of existence are entangled in different social institutions. It is always a puzzle some question for every individual. Existence- the individual experience and the self- centred living - evolves intrinsic survival within the  basic structure of society . How far can a human being reach pursuing a  solitary quest for existence - is the unanswered question  she  always  contemplated  . 

From within her , a cynical voice spoke out in the words of Aristotle, with a twist in the tone:'Man is a social animal....! '.

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