Since childhood i saw people grieving over death of their loved ones be it death of a beloved pet or a dear one. Even movies showed the pain and distress , the agony could be felt in our hearts. I am a small town girl , born and brought up in a small place dhanbad in jharkhand. There was my favourite outing with mom and dad to the vegetable vendors roadside market. To my fancy was one watermelon lady . She was a old woman with teethless smile , similar as i had as i had just lost my teeth to tooth fairy , everytym i saw her i asked her ur tooth was also taken by rat, she laughed. The best part about these people are they might be poor bt they have a wealthy heart . Bt that day something was different i saw her crying , vehemently trying to dry her tears in her soiled , torn, saari end . she was sobbing bt still she had watermelons on sale. A few people gathered opposite her were discussing how disgusting the woman was , a fat lady wid brinjal face said, others agreed .
A man spitted on her saying how greedy lady is she , she just lost her son and not even spent a day grieving rather shamelessly selling watermeons to earn money in the market. the other man nodded recalling story of a woman who had lost her dog few months back was still not able to get up from her bed , not ate for days and was still mouring .
My lil mind tossed and tumbled was she bad as they said or she was my good smiling friend.
Later i got to know her only son had died few hours back due to snake bite, she had lost all her savings in the last rites of her son. But she had an ailing daugher in law with high fever , two grandchildren crying for food …what could she do …should she mourn her only son death or sell some watermelons to feed her family to keep them alive…was she wrong was she not not brave ….have we lost humanity..todays world poor people cannot even afford to mourn…