Mala

Follow us:WhatsappFacebookTwitterTelegram.cls-1{fill:#4d4d4d;}.cls-2{fill:#fff;}Google News"Mala is dead," my reporter's voice crackled on the phone. The news left me stunned. I felt a sudden sense of loss overwhelm me.

Not that she was supposed to mean anything more than a colleague. Yet she was someone I had grown to like.

Perhaps she was already dead when several years back the man she loved the most, left her. Despite belonging to a well-known family in her city, she put up with a lot. Her hectic schedule at work, evening parties where she ended up meeting the same people, her boss's rasping laughter and his friends that she was often required to entertain.

In her prime she would make heads turn. Men fawned over her while their women's opinion bordered on ambivalent... they adored her, yet they were also envious of her good looks. She had that rare ability to win over people in the first interaction. I got first acquainted with her on telephone. More calls followed.

Our conversations were mostly about work. But they were still enjoyable. She liked sharing her experiences. Her uncle was well-known in aviation circles. And that is how she also got interested in the field. It was he who introduced her to his contacts, which got her a job. Her hard work and personal charm soon made her influential.

Her popularity only added to her loneliness. A few years before her death a journalist who also dabbled in palmistry went to meet her. She asked him to read her hand. During the session she broke down and confessed how the years had only increased her isolation.

Politics, media, industry... she knew everyone who was anyone in her state. You could in fact call her one man networking army. For a long time we only spoke on phone. Whenever there was some issue concerning her market I would ring her up and she would unfailingly be of immense help. When I saw her photograph in the internal newsletter I realized how beautiful she still was.

Years went by. It was time to move on in life. I found job in Mumbai. And someone who had become special. Those were the last few days in the Delhi, where I had grown up. One day while at work I heard a softly call out my name. I looked around. A well turned out middle-aged lady stood at the doorway. She looked emaciated.

I looked hard at her. "Hi, I'm Mala." We were meeting after all. I remarked how much she had pulled down. "Yes, I'm undergoing chemotherapy." I was shocked.

We spoke for some time. Then she left.

Mala of the telephone conversations, of the photograph in the newsletter, toast of her city's cognoscenti is no more.

Her funeral was well-attended. People she knew well, not so well and those she had helped, they all came.

At work a colleague who had come over for some work asked me why I looked so upset. I said that someone very nice had passed away. He and another colleague started guffawing. "Everyone's nice after death."

I kept quiet. In Mumbai people definitely think big and beyond. first published:February 14, 2007, 14:20 ISTlast updated:February 14, 2007, 14:20 IST
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