Valli reminded me of breezes that pass by without feeling the momentum of their own movement, leaving others unaware of their moving existence. She sat on the side of a staircase of a wedding hall, indifferent to the many pairs of feet that skipped, hopped and trudged up and down the stairs. Yet, she remained pleasant to anyone who did choose to stop.
It has been 10 years since she left her hometown, Tiruvannamalai, to come to Bangalore. Since then she has worked at wedding halls- sweeping and mopping floors, rolling up rows of meal-residues on banana plantain laid out on sheets of crisp white paper.
At 35, she has already been made a grandmother four times over by her daughter, who has followed her mother’s footsteps and also works at wedding halls.
I ask if she plays with her grandchildren, and she laughs that question off like it’s a pointless thing to do, almost making it seem like it’s a strange thing to ask. At the same time, she is keen that her construction-worker son progresses to having his own children.
I ask her, “Tell me the one thing that makes you really happy, the one really good thing in your life.” She says there’s no such thing: nothing good, nothing bad. She’s happy with life, with her family, she says. I wonder if our ideas of happiness meet, if happiness is exhilarating, or just a state of mind that’s not sad.