Walk In The Evening

This is in response to Esther’s Weekly Word Prompt.

This week’s prompt: Memory

Walk In The Evening

The park looks different in the evenings.

Children playing.

Dogs walking with their masters/mistresses.

Senior citizens, men and women, taking walks in groups or alone.

Young men jogging…sweating out the day’s stress.

Young women laughing , chatting , teasing each other. A few sharing secrets.

In one corner, the enthusiasts have put up a net and lights and playing badminton. Their cries of joy of playing well, disappointments at a bad or failed shot, shout outs, pulling each other’s legs, giving instructions to partners…hollering at an acquaintance.

***

After one round and a half I sit down on my favourite bench.

A few known faces wish me. Neighbours.

There are couples who stay all by themselves. Their children settled elsewhere in the country or abroad.

Dutt Sir walks with his nephew. His tricycle trailing behind.

Beenu Mausi takes her niece along. She asks questions incessantly. She replies back patiently.

Toddlers giggle learning to walk…flop down….and walk again uncertainly…

I hear loud discussions on politics, investments, failed policies, family reunion.

***

Then there is she.

I know her.

A widow.

Her husband died of cancer.

The joint family, she was a part of, has now fragmented. Some stay abroad. Some in other cities.

Her daughter was my nephew’s classmate – they were good friends. She was a brilliant student. Now married and settled in another Metro.

The mother stays all by herself.

In a smaller flat.

Their sprawling ancestral property has been sold off.

I see her smiling face.

A regular evening walker.

She has her timings. Sometimes she is off to the market after the walk. Sometimes she heads back home for an early dinner and her favourite TV show.

I try to peer through the fine lines on her face.

Are there remnants of dark memories there ?

Suffering? Agony ? Pain ?

Her eyes crinkle when she smiles.

Her grey hair in a tight bun shines in the moonlight.

She sometimes carries a tote bag… sometimes comes empty handed.

Where does she hide her emptiness ?

Or life teaches everyone to move on just like that packing up the past and shoving it in at the back of some old cupboard.

Did she let the cupboard stay ?

Or

Did she sell it off with countless other useless junk?

Sometimes even memories outlive their utility.

I sigh deeply and get up to go back home.

***

I must also bundle up my memories and dispose them off… Somewhere remote perhaps.

So that a smile may lurk in the mesh of deep wrinkles etched around my vacant eyes.

Pics : From Personal Album