The pair of slippers

As the soot clouds rose to the sky, Aravinda reflected about her life. The life she led was nobly impressive. Aravinda wanted to chronicle his mother's life. She was called 'lady' by many, because of what she had donated and built for the needy: hospitals, self-employment aids and other community service. She had no issue of funds, which were primarily drawn from her private medical companies. But that was not sufficient for her. She raised funds and got her associates involved too.

Aravinda's first problem was locating right information. Mother's writing habit was not neat. She wrote everything everywhere. In the diary she would also keep her records of expenses as well as some contact details apart from some small diary notes. But she wrote, Aravinda had seen.

As he entered the room, Aravinda was embraced by sweet melancholic memories. He felt it strong as she is no more. May be she is looking at him from somewhere above. He felt a pang of guilt - he is trying to invade her private world. But the next moment he made up his mind. I am doing something that is harmless. My intentions are noble.

Sorting the dusty documents, Aravinda came through an exercise book of 40 pages. It was filled with bits and pieces of her records: expenses, diary notes and random thoughts. For Aravinda it meant patience to go through everything and filter what he wanted. But he had already thought of going for it.

And then he started rewriting.

Lechchami didn’t read newspapers. I knew that for sure, not because she was Tamil. She did not have a good command of reading. But she had an intuitive skill to detect the pages we were not much interested: classified and vacancies.

She was waiting for midnight to arrive, when everyone in the house was fast asleep. That is how her mind must have worked. But I did not sleep. She was quite focused on her job, so she did not notice me stirring in the house doing some urgent errands.

But what she did I had no idea, as she disappeared into dark.

I bought the slippers for Lechchami to have it on our family outings. Lechchami’s own slippers were a disgrace to our family. It affects our nobility. It hurt our pride. The slippers would cover her ugly feet.

“This pair of slippers is for you. You have to leave it here when you go home, okay?”

“No lady. I won’t be taking it anyway.”

Another day dawned when I had to give into the strongest emotion: deep anger. That's when I saw her with my slippers on.

"Do you know what you have put on, Lechchami?"

She was clueless.

“Look at your feet, Lechchami.”

Then only, now I think, did she realize she had put on my slippers. She started shaking, and took it off immediately.

"I'm sorry madam," but I did not hear those words. Her voice was feeble and my anger was stronger.

"How dare you... Who do you think you are to have my slippers? The lady of this house? Why, you are not happy with your slippers?"

"Madam...."

"I told you not to give it to anyone. You are giving all what you earn here to that damn son of yours. I told you not to give it to anyone. And you woman did not listen to me. You dare put on my slippers."

"Madam..."

"Now don't dare take me for a ride. You have done that to me enough."

I was trembling with fury. I could not carry on my mission, as the whole world went dark.

And the rest I came to know only later: I had fainted and got admitted to my hospital.

I do not know where Lechchami stays exactly, although she said it's Thalawakele. All I had was her phone number. My son had no choice when she said she had to leave.

When I rang her son's mobile number, he spoke in broken Sinhala.

“Madam, mother came to our place. But she didn't have anything to eat. She was feeble all the time. She did not speak much.”

I listened to him quietly.

“Madam, are you there,”

“Yes, I'm listening.”

“Madam, I do not know what happened. I asked what went wrong, she just replied everything is all right. I think she was too concerned about my son's sickness. I was shocked to see her dead the following day. ”

“What's wrong with your son?”

“The doctor sir told me some word, I cannot remember. But it's something to do with the leg.”

The other line went silent, but that was just for a while. Did he think I was being passive towards his mother's death? But I was too guilty to ask anything.

“The doctor said his legs need to be covered. You know madam we can't even think of anything like that in this cold climate. He wanted us to have warm shoes to cover his feet all the time.

“You know madam, we are living by what my mother used to send. So as usual, I told this to her. And she said she will send me a pair. Actually I must thank you madam. Sorry, but I did not have enough time to thank you.”

“It's all right, Velu. So how are you going to arrange the funeral?”

“We did not have one, madam. How can we? We cremated her that day itself. Only a few of us were there to witness it.”

The whole world fell silent at that moment. Aren't I responsible for the fall of a family?

How can I ever compensate for what I have done to her? I cannot use my wealth to save her now? But there is one thing I can do in memory of Lechchami.

Aravinda stopped for a while to read through what he had rewritten out of the bits and pieces in his mother's notebook.

This will be all right for the biography's first chapter. He has ample time to rewrite it.

Satisfied, Aravinda closed his eyes to relax.

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