Writing with no home

Poverty has left a burden that they find difficult to shake off. It is difficult to guess that when they move around with smiling faces, but it manifests itself in so many different ways – from worrying that everyone is fed (all the time) to not wanting anything at all that costs money to hoarding everything in case it could be useful in the future.

The other day, faiba was thinking of her dad and she got really upset and starting crying. It was because the memory of something of as personal as loving her dad was mixed with the memories of the sacrifices and hardships they had to face together. When she recounts those incidents, they seem so far away and unreal. Double duty of teaching at a school and then taking tuitions, selling soap door-to-door, buying things for home anonymously when there were no household funds to do so, arranging money and clothes for the children of the house.. she told me how they'd purchased a cycle for fai (bua) and kaka (chacha) who were still studying. It got stolen within a few months and it was heartbreaking to arrange for it again. It is a marvel that 80 years ago, she, with a hearing disability, started striving towards being independent on all counts. It’s amazing that in spite of being treated unfairly and being considered inferior, she stood on her own feet. 

As for the burden of grief? I wish I knew how to lighten that. Meanwhile we just make her laugh using random filters. As she reviewed the face distortion filters, "Jenu hassu no aavtu hoi, ene dikhadi ne hassavaiey".