Sunday! Such a nice day in the calendar, to do whatever you want to – hang out with friends, watch a movie, or simply go shopping, as I do.

So, one such very cold Sunday, I was out in the supermarket to buy groceries and other things. After having checked tomatoes, spinach, noodles and endless other items off my list, I exited, and had only gone a few paces through the crowded main market when I saw a very old woman, sitting hunched up on the footpath, raising her heavily wrinkled face and staring at the passing people expectantly with her exceptionally big and red eyes, obviously begging. Now, I usually don't shower beggars with money, but this shivering woman presented such a pitiful figure that I couldn't resist. I crossed the street and walked up to her – noticing that the air grew colder and colder as I drew close – and handed out a fifty rupee note. Then, as I was moving on, the unfairness of it all struck me. How could I leave an aged, maybe even ailing, woman on the road like that? Yes, I had given her fifty rupees, but what could you buy with it, seeing that even a decent-sized pack of biscuits today costed more than half the amount?

I turned back and offered her my shawl, which wasn't exactly my favorite, and would at least keep out the cold, if nothing else. She looked up at me with that strangely shrewd look on her face, put out a trembling hand, and accepted the shawl. Then, feeling pleased with my deed, I went back home.

The next day, when I was setting out for work, I saw the same woman standing rather unstably by the huge peepal tree near my house. Deciding that she was a right old fraud, having followed me up to my house the previous day (how else could she have known where I lived?), I walked on swiftly and tried to ignore her. But she was staring at me again, not speaking anything, but just staring with her red eyes, in a way which sent a chill down my spine. I went inside, fetched her a cup of tea, and couldn't help noticing that my dog was cowering at her sight, and was plainly refusing to go an inch nearer to her. Nevertheless, I hurried on.

I saw her regularly from that day onwards. Whenever I'd step out, she would totter towards me and hold out a hand, like a child expecting chocolates. Every time I gave her some food and drink, and she seemed quite pleased about it. She had stopped giving me the stares now, seemed quite lively, though she never spoke (I had come close to imagining she was dumb), and I must admit I grew rather fond of her in a few days' time.

One day, when I had fed her with a few Indian sweets, she brought out a small bag, very shabby, but clean otherwise, and took out from it a shiny wooden bangle, intricately carved, perfectly shaped and very smooth. She held it out, and I could hardly think she could afford such a beauty.

"Did you make it?" I asked; my voice had dropped to a whisper, though I didn't know why.

She nodded vigorously, still not speaking. She pointed first at it, then at me, then held it right under my nose.

"You want me to have it?"

A smile broke out on her dry lips, and she nodded yet again.

I took it from her, simply jubilant, half glad that my good deeds had paid off; half triumphant over imagining what such a luring ornament would have cost at the jeweler's.

The next day, she came and saw me wearing it. She left looking radiant, and I did not see her again.

Then one fine morning, a Sunday coincidentally, when I was going shopping, a thin, harassed-looking policeman came hurrying towards me.

"Ever seen this 'oman, m'm?" he asked me, and held out a passport sized photograph. "D'you reckon you know 'oo she is?"

I glanced at the picture. It was the same woman I had been meeting. I asked his purpose suspiciously. Was she a pickpocket or a thief or something?

"Oh, don't ask, m'm," he said heavily. "Found 'er dead in a street two months ago. Boss's been trying to solve 'er case since then. I mean, why have we got to worry 'bout 'em beggars?," he mopped his forehead with his sleeve, "but boss says 'tis important. As if I don't know. Increases his chances for promotion, 'aving an impression of caring for people. Caring, my foot...making us work day 'n night like mules...never seen 'er, then? Thanks, m'm..."

Now that I came to think of it, I had first seen her roughly about two months ago... I had been meeting her after she had been reported dead! Paralyzed with dread, I hoped I'd wake up to find that it had been a dream...all a dream...but the bangle glinted in my wrist, shining up at me. Who had I really been meeting then? Who was she? And why did her soul choose me, me of all the people in the market that Sunday?

She had gone away leaving a thousand unanswerable questions in my mind.