Sanely Insane

I first met her at my apartment elevator. Unlike some other indifferent tight-lipped creatures who either cast their eyes fixed at the floor or at the ceiling (making the moments all the more awkward) this tall lady, gigantic in figure, frizzy haired (but comely in that frizziness) and dead white in complexion, had an unfeigned smile and an unassuming countenance. Rarely found pleasing genuineness.

“Which floor?" she asked and without waiting my reply she continued..."I am new here, actually not new. I have been abroad for some years and now came back. I am all alone...it's so suffocating you know..."

       

She was highly garrulous whenever I met her in most of the evenings on my way back from college. "I have been to temple, every evening I go there...it's good for my mind..." and the prattling may extend for some time, complaining how the loneliness is stifling her, how she misses her only daughter who's in a far away boarding school, and her husband who comes only once or twice in a year.


 Noticing my new acquaintanceship with the lady my friend had a new warning to give, "hey...don't listen to her too much...there's a news that she's out of her mind. Her family doesn’t live with her. However hard they tried she's not yielding to be treated". 

"But she seems normal..."

"Normal? Oh no dear, she's not normal". My mom reminded me of how my personal estimations often proved wrong and how my slippery judgments always betray me when it comes to people.

“When are you going to understand all these?”

Yes...when am I going to stop the rejection of normalization? When normalcy rejects me? Of course it always has a propensity to reject me... 
   
 Funny enough for my friend the personal estimation evidently proved wrong. The lady said of her purple painted walls, "purple is good for my mind...my husband says so...."

She cleaned and cleaned her squeaky-cleaned flat and said, "someone is putting some dirty powder all over my floor ...every hour I cleans it up but still it's untidy...

"Hey...don't drink the water from the tap, some one has mixed poison in it…I use only the bottled"

As she started throwing things from her balcony in a grip of frenzy the watchman grumbled, "It's pathetic that the lady is not celled. What if she strangles someone...? Mad creature! 

 Things went rampant and her husband did the inevitable. Whether she yielded or not...it was just "inevitable".

A few months later when she saw me at the library the frizzy haired tall gigantic woman  with her unassuming  smile rushed towards me from the other end... "Hey you...it's been a long time…I was just planning to meet you. I have joined a distance course in literature. I think I should do something seriously... at least to escape this damn boredom...so will you please help me to sort out some doubts...it's very confusing...the books..."

While she was running her eyes all over the book shelves still maundering, my friend who was with me quickly grabbed my hand and dashed to the exit door saying, "Are you 'mad'? Don't you know that she's 'mad'?"

Amused by my smile she asked..."What so funny?"

"Nothing...the idea of insanity...it's so strange and stupid sometimes!"

"Oh yes, stupid for you insane people!"

As we laughed a feeble current of pain and muddiness aired through me... still laughed…”it’s good for my mind?”...am extremely good at acting (often to myself)!