I watched the movie Thelma and Louise in 1992. I was a 4th year medical student then and I remember sitting in the theatre, way after the movie was over because of the way the movie ended. It shook me to the core. May be it was the Indian in me after watching all the Indian movies with not so dramatic ending that hoped for a different ending, that somehow there was another cliff on which the car landed and they managed to free themselves and escape..

And I have been a fan of the name Thelma ever since.

Every Thursday, I host tea for my elderly neighbours. It started of with one neighbour and now I have 5 regulars and many occasional drop ins. All of them live in my suburb and most have arrived in Australia following their adult children who migrated to here.

Like me, they are also socially isolated and making a pot of tea and serving some cookies and scones isn’t a hassle. Thursday is my only free day where I don’t have to drive the kids for sports and so we meet every Thursday. They are all surrogate grandmothers to my kids.

Thelma is one of my regular visitor. She is in her 80’s. She plays tennis once a week, walks every morning and is fit as a fiddle. While yours truly thinks tennis racket is a bit too heavy and gasps after walking 100 meters. When I invited Thelma to come for tea, she said she will only come if I make samosas. I said sure.

Working day evening, there is no way I can make samosas from scratch, so I bought frozen samosas and baked it at home. When Thelma saw the perfectly made store bought samosas, she said, she hasn’t met anyone as cheeky as me in her entire life and I told her the only reason I invited her is because I like the name Thelma and We have been good friends ever since.

She talks about her life in South Africa often and recently something that she said caught my attention. She said she was bullied at school all the time and one particular girl once told her in front of everyone ” Thelma, do you know you are the most ugly girl ever born?” to which Thelma replied “Yes, I know, but I have a reason” The bully asked her “oh, yeah, what is your reason?” and Thelma replied ” I take ugly pills every morning, what is your reason?” No one ever called her ugly after that.

I wish I had known this answer years ago.

Updated: Sometime ago, Thelma had told me about her favourite song, she said it is about rose and she can’t remember the lyrics/artist etc, but I must make sure that her favourite song is played when her coffin is taken out of the church..as her farewell song. I found the song this morning..