I swear its eyes were furious as it looked at me. It had built it’s web from the sides of my bathroom window, across, to a decorative steel pole a foot or two away, and by accident, as I strove to put on a switch, my hand had gone through it’s neatly woven handiwork and made a mess of it.
It’s two beady eyes looked fiercely at me, and I actually made a mock namaste and begged it’s pardon, but the spider wasn’t amused at my lighthearted apologetic display, though I must admit on my part, I made it a point from that day on, to reach for the switch, without breaking the poor fellow’s web.
We shared the same space, I, my bathtub and shower, and he, his web stretching across the little space he had taken for himself.
We were quite happy with our arrangement.
And then yesterday I saw it was gone. Web, spider and all.
I knew what had happened, my maid must have lifted her eyes from the cleaning of the floor and seen the web. With a swish of the same broom, web, spider and all, must have been removed.
I wondered whether it had died, or lurking around, looking from some far corner, blaming me for it’s destruction of home and property.
I imagined a conversation with the maid, and her, looking with surprise if I asked about the spider, “But it was just a spider sir!”
Just a spider!
How many human spiders and their web homes do we remove without a thought?
I heard a billionaire who lives in Bombay got a slum removed in the suburbs overnight, because he wanted to set up another office there. “I went home after work,” sobbed a poor woman, “and my house was razed to the ground!”
Just a spider! Right?
Recession glaring at industries, and workers thrown out!
Cars not selling, and employees having less work.
They’re only spiders yah! Swish goes the broom!
I saw videos yesterday of a mob throwing out furniture from a church, breaking benches and thrashing parishioners!
Just spiders! Small and intruding into our space! Right?
A poor man of another faith crying out it’s not meat he’s carrying. But who cares, as gangs thrash him, lynch him!
Come on, don’t create such a ruckus, he’s just a s…”
Yes, you said it!
“She’s just a spider!” we sneer as women are raped.
We cut trees, we stone strays, and throw vocal hurting barbs at just spiders!
Ah! But once my spider and I, we shared the same space. I, my bathtub and shower, and he, his web stretching across the little space he had taken for himself. We were quite happy with our arrangement.
“Come back!” I shout, and somewhere I hear a little sigh of relief, just as I hope I will hear in this my country, as we look at each other and stop thinking, he or she “is just a spider!”
Because, nobody is..!

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