As a child, along with my parents I used to frequently visit my mother's native place, which is a small village in the state of Orissa, India. And here I must say, those were the best memories of my childhood. But this blog is to pay remembrance to a person, to whom I still owe a promise and could never fulfill it.
Here goes the story of an old woman whom I fondly remember as mahanta maa. she was a tall stout lady defying her age completely, and used to live in the house that was diagonally opposite to my grandparents house. And none of our annual meetings was devoid of those beautiful and earthy evenings where I used to go to mahanta maa's muddy but clean house, sit on the verandah of her house and listen to some beautifully narrated stories by her.
Some time those stories were her own. Being married at an early age of 15, having lost her husband a year after , and then being a single parent to her only son, she proved that she doesn't need to be born in the 21st century to be a strong and independent woman.
As the years passed by, our friendship deepened and she made a permanent place in my naive heart.
And on one such visit, while we were leaving for delhi after spending some wonderful days in that place, I visited mahanta maa, which I would later realize was the last visit I would ever pay her. And she took a promise, a promise that I would regularly write letters to her and gave me the address to which I should write to.
After coming back to delhi, I attempted to write a letter many times but could never post it due to some reason or the other. And on one eventful day, we got a news that she is no more and that she succumbed to old age. I was so deeply pained that I never wrote a letter after that in my life....
And the guilt of an unfulfilled promise hasn't left me even after so many years and probably I will have to live with it for the rest of my life....
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