Ponder

She limps up the stairs with a pot of water on her hip, her sari pleats tucked into her waist. She stops for brief moments, as if to gather strength to take the next step. Her eyes have a ring of grey, giving away the age which she denies by going about like a machine running on fuel. She carefully pours the water into a stainless steel drum and repeats the drill. On random days, when her luck fails along with the municipality water supply, she does this chore to make sure there is enough water to drink and use around the house. Her younger days aren't any different. She wakes up before dawn to cook for a big family, packs her lunch along with the others' and takes a public transport to go to the school where she teaches. Her evenings are filled with household chores and cooking and cleaning after grown up kids. Now she is retired. Old enough and worked enough to rightfully deserve a 'retirement'. She keeps her lips zipped and her hands and mind busy. Never waits for her daughters in law to chime into the chores. Diligently cooks, cleans and feeds an ungrateful family that should, ideally, take care of themselves and then take care of her as well.
Her service is the tip of the iceberg.
"Take it if you like it" she'd offer her every worldly possession from saris to accessories. "Do it your way" she'd withdraw, when family decisions are being made. "Let me take care of that" she'd volunteer to wipe the butt of a grandkid.
Her daughters in law afford the luxury of PMSes, boredom and break from the kids in forms of shopping trips while she works like a machine that could have been fortunate enough if she were an actual machine, that she could break down and stop working from the overuse.
The pampered sons and daughers in law think they deserve it, think they are so good that their mom is all over them slogging her last bit of energy off, repaying them for their worth!

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If there were a human form to anger, ego and selfishness - this has to be THE man. He'd gamble, drink, womanize and come home to a dreading family that hides behind the doors when he smashes his dinner plate into the wall just because the fish isn't done right! His wife would weep silently while the sons and daughters follow instructions to the q, not looking in the eye, not questioning, not rebelling. He'd have it his way - shouting at the pitch of his lungs and making the house a living hell. The last time he comes home with an overdue bill at the local bar, the son pulls out the money earned from tutoring and pays the dues. The daughters cook and clean while the wife silently suffers the atrocities of holy matrimony. He specially makes it a point to show off in public as to what a dread he is to his folks and how much respect he commands and how disciplined his family is.

Little does this monster of a person know or realize that it is their love for him that makes them endure his eccentricities and to question a person and put him in his place, it does not take a whole army and ammunition - all it takes is a little giving up!

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The boy lives with a purpose - to love the girl. He has eyes only for her. He yearns for nothing except to give her what makes her happy. Smiles, cards, chocolates, flowers, gifts, reassurances - you name it! She chases a goal, a mirage, a nothingness - which makes her blind to the emotion, to the pure love that is being served to her on a platter. She doesn't look at the love, or may be she doesn't care to admit - for her world lies elsewhere, an elsewhere where there is everything but love. She admires him, acknowledges him but when it comes to realizing how lucky she is, she fails - she moves ahead in life, leaving a shattered heart that holds her in its every little piece. She gets what she wants, but will never live to realize what she threw away was a million times precious than what she chased.

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The worst thing in life is not lacking it - it is lacking the realization of having it.