Bridging the Gap

There is an old couple on one of the lower floors. The lady is a retired teacher and they have a daughter in London and a son in Dubai. Like us they've been in the building right from the beginning, she's friendly and I say a few words once in a while, when I meet her on the road. She seems to be the one running the house because all I've seen the old man doing is standing outside the gate or sitting on a bench in the park and smoking. Anyway, three days ago I had gone to her floor looking for Anu. I met Auntie by chance and she said she was just tired from all the running around and packing she's been doing for the impending travel. Both of them were going to stay with their daughter for a month and a half and then with their son for a week. Then she asked me to take a look at her bag and tell her if it would be okay as a cabin baggage, as far as the size went. I said I would check and let her know. That night she came home to confirm some more things with P and she said she had just returned from Yelahanka after getting a printout from a relative. P and I were aghast; Yelahanka by public transport is like another planet and she went there just to get a printout?! It turns out she didn't have an email id and her daughter had mailed her some documents to be taken along. I felt so sorry. She lives in a building where all except her must have a laptop and an email id and 90% of the people work in IT industry and she had to go all the way to Yelahanka! I told her she could've knocked anybody's door for it and everybody would've been glad to help out. She gave a sheepish smile and said yes, everybody was very kind actually. I didn't know what to say except to give her my email id and to beg her to let me know if she needed any such thing in the future. Thankfully, for the next few days she took printouts from me, weighing machine from another neighbour and finally yesterday her neighbour and I saw them off in the cab to the airport. After she left, her neighbour and I got to discussing about how active she was but I'm not sure she does it for pleasure. May be she's just not ready or confident to swim in this new world of online transactions so she drags her tired body to all the offices which are hardly friendly most times. What will she do in another ten years?

And my mother recently did some banking transactions(going to the branch) on her own and she's feeling very thrilled. In the past V and I had been asking her to operate her account on her own but she'd never shown any interest. Her recent feud with my father makes her want to be all independent now. Nice.