" madam, do you want coconut, pineapple, banana?" smiling at me, exposing her toothless grin. This was how i met this woman on the beach. Surya was one of the women who runs her own mobile fruit business; where she moves around with such a heavy-weight basket of fruits balancing on top of her head.
She is very tanned and stout, who probably has to lift her fruit basket up and down countless times a day---with at least 10-15kg; sometimes having a big watermelon in one arm.
"You look ( pointing at the basket), i go take coconut ( pointing at the back hut), i come back." In some very basic English, this is how she communicates with the foreigners. Behind all those smiles, the lines on her face somehow reveals her grievance.
She came back from behind, with two coconuts. Placing them on the soft sand, pulling out the pa- rang from the basket and started hacking the coconut skillfully. She must had done this for years i thought.
" You are a strong woman", i told her.
In a moment, her smile faded and she look at me, " my name Surya, means Sun. My life sad, my son died. He 22 year old. He come home from holiday, tell me chest pain and gone the next day"
Surya has 4 daughters and a son; she later said that all of them cried for many days; and she misses her son dearly till today.
" Bad life, very bad", she sort of concluded her life.
" You have four good daughters. you are strong, good life." i told her. She brightened and nodded with a smile.
Without any pity, yet i am very impressed by her strength to live on. Which makes her even tougher than before, knowing that she needs to survive in any circumstances.
Getting chained and living in the past is probably one scariest thing that can happen to us. When we allow the present to flow passed without any knowledge; where we constantly are living in a state of fake happiness, sadness or agony.
Everything that happens, happens for some reasons. We may not know them when we want to, but this reason will appear together with some other events later.
There is in the worst of fortune the best chances for a happy change.~ Euripides
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