A DEBT OF CHILDHOOD.

It was early in the morning when she arrived at our home looking frail and tired of her long journey from our native town. Savita was our new caretaker. She was a very distant relative of my dad. We were small kids and my parents were working so it was a necessity to have one.Savita came in a floral dress which looked weather beaten. She came from a very poor farming family and this new job would help her family back home.

Savita stayed with us for nearly a decade and took good care of us. She was a strict maid who insured discipline in us.We would consider her as a part of our family.She became a metamorphosed person with new dresses, lip stick and powder on her dark face.She also was growing along with us and soon wedding bells rang for her. She settled in the city. We were very sad kids that day. After all,She had been a part of our growing up years.

Time flies away and people get busy in their own enmeshed lives. Her visits became very sporadic and soon a solitary annual phone call was the only means of contact with her. I always remembered her fondly.

Yesterday afternoon my door bell rang and I was pleasantly surprised to see Savita with her son. She had come to invite us for her daughter's wedding.

She was as excited as a small child. She was very happy for her daughter who would now settle in a building flat and move out of her shanty chawl. The bride groom was a bank employee to boot. She was on cloud 9. Her unfulfilled dreams would come true for her daughter atleast.

Savita's husband was a watchman who earnt a paltry sum which he wasted on alcohol every night.She used to cook at a couple of houses to sustain her household. It was a sad struggle for her everyday and everynight. Her current enthusiasm and happiness belied her abject status.She had only her daughter's marriage, uppermost in her mind.

She waxed eloquent about her wedding plans, the hall, the menu and the sarees and the decor. She had saved every penny for this day.The marriage would be conducted in a low budget. There would be compromises and cut shorts.

I went into my room and cried, hugging Mansi whose eyes also were moist.

Her child like enthusiasm despite her shoe string budget really made me sad.

She also mentioned that she had just come only to invite us without any monetary expectation.

I did what I could do best. I had to repay my debt of childhood.

We spend so much on luxuries without batting an eye lid.

My act of kindness would atleast mitigate her current trouble.

Seeing the red notes amounting to nearly half her wedding budget, she just hugged my mother and cried in sobs.

We all cried yesterday.