The purgatory

I returned home with a little guilt. It is always easy to blame others for irresponsibility, for carelessness, for mistakes and for blunders. An elderly woman sat beside me. A long bamboo stick supported her body from falling on her chin. There were two seats empty, the one was next to door and the other was beside me. I asked her to sit beside me because it was dangerous for woman of her age to sit in front of the door. She sat by me pressing my knees to support her. Her wrinkles did not match with her black hair. May be she was much younger than the way she appeared. She was a talkative woman who smelt like ammonia, like urine. I was nauseated but she was so unaware of this and was chatting with other passengers fondly. She laughed at them, talked carelessly with the conductor, flirted with the boys and chatted with the girls on how should they take care of themselves and how our tradition are important. She smelled terrible but I was enjoying her talks. I did not talk with her neither did I look at her face. I don’t know why even she didn’t talk to me when she was talking with almost everyone. One of her hands was still seeking support in my knees. I was still wondering how come her hair was black when her body stooped and her eyes sunk in the waves of wrinkles. Once she ran a curt look on my face, I tried to smile but may be I had failed. She again regained her talks with the passengers complaining the inflation, shortening length of girls’ clothes, she didn’t even spare politics. She said dethroning the king was a wrong move; she expected some irreparable damage in the country.
In spite of flamboyant and on the face comments, she was killing me with her smell. Yes I was in guilt. I got some money as a perk but then I thought that was the part of my job. I was involved in three new projects for which I was in some committee for which I got perks. I got perks for things that got my least involvement, in fact least involvement of everyone. We are three in our group, while one works on the system already in operation the other and I work on new projects. If one were to compare the volume of work undoubtedly the one who works on the system in operation works more than any of us. But since he is not involved in new projects, he is spared from perks that we get. If work was the primary parameter for one’s sincerity then he should have gotten more perks than we do but it’s a biased world. I had this guilt, felt sorry for everything.
I was fighting remorsefully with myself. I had this restlessness. The feeling was similar to the suffocation I undergo inside the water when I am swimming. Whenever I resent something in office my colleagues say you’ll adapt to this with time. I knew after one year I had still not adapted to the place. I have my own prejudices, selfishness and other flaw that are genuine to a common man but I have the conscience which has resisted the change, it still resists my gain that has no sweat associated with it.
When contemplating with all these things, the old lady had come and sat by my side. I was drifted by her words and more than that by the intolerable smell. I know an elderly woman crippled by Alzheimer who does not even notice she has urinated or excreted on her clothes. May be this woman was one of them, I thought but her talks were enough to prove me wrong. I turned toward the window but the air was blowing from her side towards me, it was the feel of hell. In the struggle I had forgotten the guilt, when she briskly scanned my face her eyes seemed to look deep into my soul but I could not smile. When I got down I was in great relief, it was a wonderful comfort. Was she the representative of god or god himself who had come to punish me. God has different ways of punishing us. She alleviated my self imposed sin and I felt relieved.