She lives, the man will see, with what is made available to her. She is a part of the land, as old as it is: she is as immovable. In the midst of the life that has reduced her to trying to earn some money as a guide for tourists, and seen only an old woman to the tourists-not worth their time and barely worth their notice-her resolve is strong. But he will see, as he watches, that even though the sky may fall and shatter around her, she is untouched: "shatterproof." The man will note that as he looks at the woman, and the cracks around her eyes, the cracks will seem to spread to the landscape around her: to the hills, the temples and even the sky. The shock the man receives is looking at the sky, perhaps as blue as the woman's eyes: but what stops him is the sense that her eyes are like bullet holes-this image is shocking and riveting, as is, perhaps, his enlightened perception of this woman and her connection to this old land. The man will turn, about to end their association, to put her in her place and demand that she leave, but she will look at him and explain that there is little else left for an old woman to do in the hills where she abides: how can she live? she seems to imply. However, the woman will be insistent the man may want to dismiss her because she is an oldwoman, and they cling and won't let go.
The man will not interested: he has seen the shrine before. For a price, she will take what seems to be a sightseer to a nearby shrine. Someone may be walking and a woman may grab ahold of his or her sleeve. In Arun Kolatkar's poem, "An Old Woman," the main theme is about keeping what is important in perspective-in this case, an old woman and her heritage-the land from which she comes.
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