Saranya wept quietly each night as she desperately wrapped herself in her threadbare blanket against the biting December cold.
Her employer let her sleep on the property but not inside the main house. The shaded front porch was surrounded by iron grills and in a corner of it she was allowed to make her bed each night. But before 6 am her blanket and pillow and the worn out jute mattress had to be tucked away out of sight behind the old iron trunk that served as an ottoman.
The old man slept inside with his wife and three children and on the opposite side of the house there was a tiny tea stall and a crude homely restaurant which he ran with the help of his wife
Saranya cleaned their house from top to bottom as well as the tea stall and the restaurant.
She also washed all the dishes and the clothes.
All this for a pittance and sleeping rights on the freezing open air porch.
She was an orphan and had been married off early by her uncles but widowed within a year of her marriage. There were no children and her in laws had felt no responsibility to keep her with them.
Having no real place to call home, no kin close enough to care, had reduced her to such abject penury and misery she had ended up accepting an almost slave like working conditions. Just to have a roof over her head and the safety and security of belonging.
somewhere. Anywhere but the road where vagrants and the homeless dwelt. Where one could have her throat slit in her sleep at night.
She had been living like this for six months now and at first in the summer nights the porch hadn't been too bad despite the deadly mosquitoes.
But nowadays she tossed and turned shivering with cold. Her employer hadn't noticed or given her a warmer blanket. To make things worse Neri the neighbourhood mongrel had started slipping through the grills to join her in her bed cuddling at her feet
"We are in the same boat re Neri. You too seek warmth and shelter which no one offers... it's a dog's life for you and this poor woman too, no?" Saranya sobbed.
Neri lifted trusting brown eyes at her and cocked his ears at her attentively.
Something about his eyes and demeanour said he got her abject plight more acutely than the humans who surrounded her.
With an impulsive leap and bound Neri climbed up on Saranya's lap and licked away her tears.
Saranya hugged the warmth of her canine friend and slowly something in her heart too started thawing, as after ages it felt the warmth of affection and companionship, from a far from dumb beast.
"Neri my beauty! You are mine now, you are all I have."
The sun rose on a serene Saranya, the next morn, fast asleep at 6 am, a soft smile still etched on her tear streaked face, as Neri wagged his tail and slid outdoors through the grills, for his morning run.
The tea stall owner was slightly miffed at the ten minutes delay in Saranya's attendance to her duties that morning, but not too annoyed.
"What's that goofy grin on your face girl? Get a move on! The dishes won't wash themselves", he grumbled, more as a matter of form.
The employer's wife raised a quizzical eyebrow as Saranya nodded and smiled, busying herself with the broomstick and humming a lilting ditty under her breath.
“Dada!”, she said firmly, “I am freezing to death at night and that is why I can only fall asleep at dawn. Get me a thicker quilt from the fair this weekend, and I will get up on time for work.”
Her employer stuttered “Ok girl, I will. You can also ask Boudi you know.”
Saranya increased the pitch of her ditty a little, without replying. “Neri!”, she thought, “Look who has got courage now!”
© Amrita Valan 2021
Photo Credit Jesse Schoff Unsplash (Indian Street Dog)
Note:
Re: A Bengali filler word to express empathy
Dada: Elder brother
Boudi: elder brother’s wife
Author Bio:
Amrita Valan is a writer from India and a mother of two boys. Her work has been printed in anthologies, such as Poetica 2 and 3, (Clarendon Press), and The Poet’s Christmas, Faith, Childhood, Friendship and Adversity anthologies. Her poems and short stories have been printed in online journals such as Piker’s Press, Academy of Hearts and Minds, Short Story Town and Spillwords, among others. Her debut collection of 50 poems Arrivederci was published in May 2021, and a collection of 17 short stories titled In Between Pauses, was just published in November 2021 by ImpSpired Press.
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