The dowager was about 48 or 49. Quite a mature age for a woman in general.Sound sapience. One can easily differentiate fallacy from the truth. More philosophical and a lot of balance. Has seen, been there often,known men’s ways and sometimes their shrewd charms.She had those intrinsic noble qualities. If such a woman has failed in love at least once in life, I would fain be her disciple for some time.Now the great dowager is in such a footing. She is intelligent . Her height-5-9. Eyes,brunet. Her elegant strides of youth have given way to a slight limping.While she climbed up and down the stairs, it is detectable.The matron had white hair. It was very enchanting with its occasional bunch of melanous tresses which gave her a genuine and distinguished cast. She made an impression that he didn’t endure preposterousness in conversation. She detested all narcissists, however she did whatever it takes not to be such a one and in part prevailing in that..She was not as tall as her brother, but when they stood together, unmistakably, everyone knew that they were siblings. She spoke beautiful English and also some French , as she was in a French colony for sometime working in Red Cross movements and she liked war stories and detective fiction, fiction that portrayed some betrayal and elopement.She read Michael Madhusudan Dutt aloud, with fervor in her voice. She liked music , not the high volume stuff,but the melodious ones, ghazals, and is said to be in the company of a cultured group that professed good activities and once it, is said was the vice chairperson of a coterie of bohemians and people of that strain and took part in late night parties. Till many of the photographs of those parties were published in the local paper which brought much ill name to her and her family. Finally her eldest daughter warned her that if she continued her ways in that fashion , she[daughter] would leave home for ever. So she stopped that style of existence because she loved her daughter more than the usquebaughs.In fact the daughter was an exact replica of her late husband who wrote on royal families of North and also some mythical tales.He died a sordid death in the mountains near Darjeeling, of fever..The dowager mostly wore saris, the Bengal cottons and in winter covered them in pashmina shawls and wore some Kanchipuram on occasions.. Which towards her old age, she presented to brides of her family or the friends’ circle as a wedding gift and also made the girl take snaps with her if possible. She was not adamant in this regard, but mostly, the girls obliged to the aunty’s whim. . Some ladies were glad when they snapped the picture with her on the grounds that it made them appear more beautiful.Back then, her face had indicated profound signs of caducity,some pigmentation due to the drugs she took and furthermore her sugar levels were soaring and it affected her skin.She possibly grins when the young ladies display pointless affectations, in light of the fact that in her youth she was unquestionably twofold their excellence. My dad, it appears had seen the dowager in his early manhood and they, it appeared had participated in one of those marches in the freedom struggle, and he said to me that she was lovely, however he was more keen on a plain looking family lady, who could make random sacrifices for the clan. And he found that in my mother and I think, he was not much mistaken about that except the fact that my mother had no knowledge of literature and arts which he classed as an additional quality in any noble woman, who will not waste her life in trash kitchen talks and gossips and ornaments. But my mother read only the daily newspaper which she perused mostly dozing in an easy chair[ made of wooden stands and in the middle joined by a thick curvy cotton cloth that supported the spine- Long recess on this chair is supposed to be not good for the spine]. However she was not interested in ornaments and was ready to pledge them in the bank, whenever my father needed money.This pledging business was quite common in our families, for want of better financial institutions in that time, and gold was a favoured asset and some ladies were crazy about them, however not my mother…
-(From a work of Fiction in progress)
SW 