Human relationship is the most complex .You can only know a person partially and any final judgment could be either too early or too erroneous.I met her in an Art exhibition.She was tall,beautiful,slim with hazel eyes and short hair.In her eyes I could read placidity of a land assaulted by storms and calamities.Outwardly she maintained coolness of a person whose conscience is set to ease.She was reticent,at times withdrawn and lost.
She seemed to have carried some weight on her heart.I never asked her about her past life nor she ever spoke of it.. A strange kind of self-concealed frugality haunted her lanky frame.Was it  a insecurity? Was it some pre mediated fear of self-abnegation or some mundane issues which pricked and pained her?I could never know it.It remained a mystery to me.Thinking not to get into one's private affairs ,I never tried to venture into her personal domain.I sympathized her frailties, worries and whims.I remained a patient listener., a good counselor .One day I got a call from her .She was crying ,mixing her words with sobs ,what she said simply rendered me speechless.She said" My husband died on his way to work in a road accident".For a moment, I felt the ground slipping beneath my feet,recollecting myself I tried to console her.I had no words ,deep down my heart I  felt a molten ball bursting into pieces;hot,piercing and burning me to the core.
Suddenly I felt like a rescued victim who has survived the calamity. .Maintaining my poise and grace I managed to utter" patience, patience...You can't do anything ,you can't help".I tried to make an analysis of   this situation with philosophy, metaphysics and natural sciences.Nothing worked .To such situation no rational principle works.It is only time which heals and prepares one to imbibe the ways of God to a person.Neither rhetoric nor false promises would mitigate one's woes.Time alone can heal it.In the lap of nature calamities, cataclysmic changes do occur, most of the time we let them pass like a newspaper headline.We get moved to tears, emotionally upset only when we locate there some one our own ,for whom we care.This tragic incident created ripples of thoughts in my mind: of loss,of inevitability of death, redemption and compensation in other forms.Nevertheless, her same image reposing coolness, gratitude and gracefulness floated in my eyes as an enigma , a mystery.