Tridevi!
    Date :01-Jun-2023
 
Tridevi
 
 
 
IT WAS in 2002 when I first met her. We had recently shifted to our new house. All were busy in unpacking and organising things. I was carefully opening up the box of crockery when I heard a sweet voice. ‘Didi, press ke kapde hai kya’? I looked up and saw a rustic woman in her early thirties. Dusky, short, slender with neat features, wearing a traditional saree; a big, bright bindi adorning her forehead. She told me about her press shop near our colony. I handed over some clothes for ironing. She loaded the bundle on her old, worn-out bicycle and left. Thus started my association with Mala. As days passed, I learnt more about her. She belonged to a small village in MP. She was married at 17 and subsequently shifted to Nagpur. Her husband owned a small kiosk where he used to press clothes. He was alcoholic and abusive. In a few years after marriage, he abandoned the shop. They had three kids; a girl and two boys. It was getting difficult for Mala to make both ends meet. Finally, a day came when she decided enough was enough: that she needed to earn money to support the family and raise her kids. That is when she re-opened the shop and started working.
Every day, Mala would finish her household chores, ride on her cycle, collect clothes from nearby houses, work the whole day and leave for home late in the evening. In a short time, I developed a rapport with her. Whenever she came to collect or deliver clothes, we used to chat, even if for a few minutes. She never complained about anything. She would mostly talk about her kids, how she wanted them to go to school and thereafter for higher education. She kept on working day after day, month after month, year after year. She enrolled her kids in a reputed school. Her workload had increased, but so had her income. Her children were also helping her out now.
Before long, she purchased a new bicycle. Her sons would now accompany her; they would collect and deliver the clothes. When her daughter completed her higher secondary education, Mala insisted that she should enroll for a Diploma in Nursing. My children should never suffer due to lack of education was her motto. Few years passed by. She found a suitable match for her daughter and married her off. By now the boys had completed their graduation. Both of them secured decent jobs. Mala set up a tiny kiosk at her house. She worked there while the boys managed the shop.
One day she came, all smiles. ‘Didi press ke kapde hai kya?’ she asked in her usual style. Then she pointed outside. Just behind our gate stood her brand-new moped! ‘Bachhone liya ji mere liye, Bank se loan lekar!’ she proclaimed!
‘Great. Congratulations! So, you don’t need to toil anymore’, I said. ‘Take it easy now’. ‘My children keep on telling me so’, she said. ‘And we may, in fact, close down this shop here. But not the one at home. I don’t want to sit idle. Hereafter I will work as per my convenience, but won’t ever stop working. True, my sons are capable, but I still need to contribute as much as I can’, she said emphatically. I watched her with admiration. An early school dropout, she had learnt so much about life. Having faced poverty, she now was financially secure. Once distraught by hardships, she was now in control of her life. She appeared to me like Tridevi, the manifestation of Wisdom, Action and Will. And I took a bow!