A Midnight Walk, a Stranger’s Story, and a Hug That Stayed With Me

I was on a girivalam, nearing the end of a long 15-kilometre walk.

It was 1.10 am, and the road was almost deserted—the kind of silence that makes each footstep feel impossibly loud. Out of that stillness, a woman appeared beside me and started talking. She asked if I wasn’t afraid to be walking alone at this hour. I said no. And so, we walked together.

She told me she was 42. Conversation flowed easily, as if we had known each other far longer than the few minutes we had been walking. She spoke of her daughter, praying for her future, and of her husband, who was battling cancer yet surviving, inch by inch, against the odds.

We spoke of ordinary things—nothing dramatic, nothing extraordinary—but in that shared midnight space, a strange closeness formed. Two strangers, opening up without expectation, without pretence, with no reason to ever meet again.

She asked why I hadn’t “brought my family.” I told her I was unmarried.

“Even an average-looking woman like me found someone,” she jokingly said. 

“Why are you wasting your prime years being single when you’re this pretty?” she prodded more.

I didn’t know what to say. 

I asked why she had married so young. She paused, thoughtful. “If I had the choice now, I would have stayed single,” she said.

She told me more—how she worked as a staff nurse at a government dispensary in Salem, how she had once dreamed of becoming an IAS officer, and how life had taken a different path. 

Her parents had chosen her husband, and she had followed their decision, living a life she hadn’t fully chosen.

Her husband’s drinking, his illness, and the burden of managing a family with two children—she carried double the weight, yet moved forward every day, without complaint.

She introduced me to her friends, saying she had “made friends with a bold woman,” pointing to me. Three other women said hello, and we shared tea before I finally said goodbye.

Before we parted, she hugged me. She said, “I saw you and just felt like saying hi. I like the way you carry yourself… there’s something about you. We don’t open up to everyone, but after seeing you, I felt I could talk… even just let a little out.”

Her words touched me. I smiled and nodded, trying to convey what I felt without interrupting the honesty she had shared.

The goodbye wasn’t awkward or rushed. It was just a human gesture. She walked away, and I stood there for a moment, letting the encounter sink in, then continued my walk, carrying her words with me.

Some meetings are fleeting. Some people cross our paths for just a few minutes. Yet their presence lingers in the corners of our minds. They remind us of the resilience, vulnerability, and shared humanity we so often forget in the rush of life. 

Stone, sky and centuries of devotion.