Last Metro Diaries 2

Yeah yeah I haven't written in a while. Not because nothing 'interesting' has happened, but because most of the time I'm too exhausted to make the mental effort of writing. Or if I do write, it's not for you. Sometimes I come close, I write something in my head and then the words fall away before I can write them down. I was going to just leave you with this song and say that it was for 'people who work on sundays (I'll never know a sunday in this weekday room) and uh, lovers probably' (though I'm not weeping and fretting or tending the oven for anyone, some of you might be)

But here's what happened instead.
'I'm sitting on the floor at Rajiv Chowk, waiting for the last metro. It's 1130. I switch from BRMC  to Jimi because I'm at a part where Patti was just talking about when she met him and he told her he felt shy before a party too. Earlier, I passed by an elegant older lady with her white hair plaited with a dull gold-yellow ribbon, she was wearing a black coat and jeans and I looked at her and wished I'd look like her when I got old.
Another old lady (who I had seen on the yellow line laying on a bench alone) comes up to me and asks when the Noida metro is coming and complains about it taking too long. She asks me why I've been sitting here so long. I told her I was going to Noida, she sits next to me and says she's going to New Ashok Nagar. She asks what I do. I tell her. She asks why I'm working so late on a sunday. She says she doesn't see or hear very well and has trouble walking. I ask her if there's anyone to pick her up from the station. She says she has no one. Her daughter got beaten up by her husband and she's going to her. The other daughter has been keeping ill as well (and her husband is also a good for nothing, abusive kind) and they have no brothers, no father. She lives in a government ashram. Through our wait and our ride she sits next to me, crying intermittently and unraveling her story. Her daughter married some guy ('love marriage') against their wishes and he's been giving them grief ever since. He beats her and their kids, he spends all their money on booze and partying with his friends. The lady's husband died a couple a year and a half ago of a brain hemorrhage soon after their daughter' second child was born. He was premature and had lung problems and stunted growth. The son in law beat the daughter before her stitches had even healed. She attributes her husband's death to the misery her son in law brought on them ('we were so happy before, she is so beautiful, she used to have a good job). She curses him throughout the journey as she cries. I sit there not knowing what to do or say, can't think of any advice to offer, or any questions to ask but the obvious and the answers are never hopeful. I don't know how to say anything to make her feel better apart from the usual rubbish about 'be strong for her, go to the police, isn't there anyone you know who can help you, family, friends, colleagues?'. She didn't ask me for any help, any money, or anything. She just wanted someone to listen. And that's all I can offer anyone, I can listen. Somehow strangers keep seeking me out to just listen. I feel guilty and powerless throughout the journey. She tells me she's been sad since she was a child. Her mother died when she was younger and she was an only child. Her father married someone else and the stepmother wasn't good to her. She hasn't seen her father since 1990, though he is alive. She has no relationship with her step-siblings. She has no other relatives. She asks me who all I have in my family. She has no job. She used to run a boutique and make clothes but she lost her job somewhere along the line. She lives off whatever the ashram gives her and some little money she gets from her husband's pension, most of which she gives to her daughter so she can feed her kids and buy them clothes etc. The son in law gets blackout drunk and is found lying on the side of the road having fallen off his bike. The next day, after beating her he apologizes, but gets drunk again and beats her.
She says she's filed a complaint with the police and has an appointment with a women's cell on the 2nd of jan but is afraid her son in law will run away to his village before that. She got off at Ashok Nagar at 12:10 with her phone ringing (I tried to tell her to try calling back but she says she can't hear anything much anyways) and wondering if she was going to get a rickshaw.
I sit there wondering what to do with this story and feeling nothing but guilt and hopelessness for this situation. I have been told something incredibly personal by a stranger, and now she's gone and I don't know what will happen to her. Which is why I'm telling you this story. So that I put it out there and I don't have to keep it with me.
The elegant older lady with the yellow ribbons also gets off at Sector 18. I hadn't even seen her in the train.