They wouldn’t let her be. At times they would even stand in her way, blocking the corridor, swaying their hips or buttocks. How would a 56-year-old school teacher go to her class? Rita madam would somehow make her way through her male colleagues along the periphery of the corridor with her arthritic knee and spondylotic hip. Yes, that was the penalty meted out to her, for she had looked at them a year ago with “sinful eyes”. Indeed, “sinful eyes” was the expression chosen by one of those perpetrators to describe her eyes. Though I had felt sorry for my colleague many a time, I chose to remain silent in this matter. After all, none wanted to be the next victim.

A year ago, Rita madam, my colleague, had faced certain sensitive family issues that happened to leave her unsettled emotionally. Her only child had been coaxed into a relationship with a stunning gymnast, a drug peddler. And our madam became apathetic and asocial. She would always remain aloof from everyone and hardly spoke to acquaintances. She rarely smiled and kept on reading one story book after another. At school I closely watched her, for she was not only my workmate but also my next-door neighbour. Later, when her daughter managed to come out of that arduous affair, the hoodlum wouldn’t leave the family alone. The crooked guy conjured up various tortuous plans and implemented them on Rita madam’s family. He would make offensive calls and send obscene photo-shopped images of Rita Di’s daughter and himself to everyone. Rita Di filed an official complaint at the cybercrime portal. Then the rogue started sending intimate snaps of his bare body from different angles via different mobile numbers. Rita Di’s daughter and husband got over this harassment with the passage of time. However, the emotional bombardment by the ruffian traumatised Rita madam. She developed a strange habit. She could never look anyone in the eye. Absent-mindedly, her roving eyes would sometimes travel from a person’s feet to waistline, tarry there a while, and then rest on his chest. Awakened from the reverie, she would hurriedly look away shamefaced. “She would sometimes visualise those snaps sent to her,” the doctor clarified later. The only place she ever revelled in was her classroom. For, I think, deep down somewhere, she knew she would have to hold on to her job. For on her feeble shoulders lay the responsibilities of her daughter and her retired, aged husband. She looked diffident and nervy.

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A few of her friends, colleagues and family members noticed her behavioural anomaly. She had to see a counsellor. Six months’ treatment with ‘Serlift’ and ‘Lonazep’ brought our level-headed Rita Di back to her former self. Her family and friends had been very supportive. At school, I was glad to have our smiling Rita Di back.

Rita Di, a competent, hard-working senior teacher, was not very popular in the staffroom. Being an introvert, she never indulged in gossip. In her spare time, she would read books, knit something or prepare notes for her students. However, the elderly staff still enjoyed her company. Yesterday, I found her advising Soma Di about her son, and today she was busy sharing with Nilanjana some recipes for a Thai dish. Otherwise, she alienated herself from most of her co-workers. I had been her only ‘friend’, if you didn’t mind calling myself so. Life is not always civil, you know. Some of the staff still pulled her leg or would tend to nibble at her vulnerable mind through derogatory words and gestures, perhaps in order to destabilise her. Day before yesterday, two of our teachers, Mir and Ankush, stood on her way, facing her, and remarked, “If she looks at us again, we would perform ‘lungi dance’ for her.” The middle-aged woman walked past them and played deaf. I wished that the cool breeze blowing at the moment through the mango leaves would dry up the beads of perspiration on her furrowed forehead. I hastened to my classroom, while some of our colleagues giggled at the comment. Later, to my surprise, I found Rita Di humming a Rabindrasangeet.

Last Saturday, Rita Di went to our assistant headmaster’s room to keep the attendance register. Quite normally, she asked after the official’s health. “Stand at a distance while talking to us!” muttered our assistant headmaster in a gruff voice, much to her chagrin. I had been there too. The musk of rain-drenched earth couldn’t pacify Rita Di’s anguish, for she walked out of the room abashed and mortified. Perhaps she remembered that she had “sinful eyes” once upon a time. I dared not stand by her and become the eyesore of my chauvinistic male coworker. Nevertheless, Rita Di had undergone a transformation. After a while, with soulful eyes, I saw her feeding some stray dogs at the school gate.

Initially I feared that Rita Di would relapse back to depression, owing to occasional emotional hassle at school. But, nah! She could boldly brave an offhand remark hurled at her. There seemed to be a fountain of resilience in her. Her daughter went abroad on scholarship to study medicine. She called her Ma up very often. At home, she practised her culinary skills along with her husband. Rita Di and her husband often held weekend parties for their friends and relatives. However, at school, the only person she ever shared her tiffin with was me. I heard Soma Di say, “There! She’s out of her classroom, her world of bliss!”

“Hey Aparna!” called Rita Di beaming at me. “What about a round of panipuri?” asked the woman with ebullient eyes. I smiled and hurried to her and the phuchkawala at the gate of our school.