The bangles

Color of life

Cars stopped at a red light. I looked around. A couple in the car beside mine. Glow of wealth visible on their skin. A hand rested lazily on the open window sill. The long row of multicolored bangles on her hand stood out brightly. The colors…sign of wealth and happiness. The colors spoke aloud—look at us, we are the symbols of life and joy.

Night fell. At a corner of my footpath lay a middle-aged old woman, half reclined. Skin sooty black, wrinkled and ravaged from long periods, maybe whole life on streets. Her sari, though once normal, now had turned blackish just like her skin. On her lap lay a child. Deeply undernourished inevitably. Layers of dirt and poverty covered him from head to toe. Together they merged nicely with the half-lit street corner…except for the shockingly out-of-place row of bangles on the hands of the woman. They tried to tell a story of life, yet untold.

It was morning again. Busy hours. My car stopped. Accident scene. I looked out. My eyes shifted from the mangled car to the broken pieces of bangles lying on the street nearby. The colors had lost their harmony. The pieces lay forlorn.

The bangles had left the hand of life.