The thin cord beyond the veil

It was way back in 2012 February. My parents who had long insisted to meet my brother right in his institute, had 'inspected' his affairs at his place and were brought into an upper middle class restaurant on RK Salai, close to light house.
Well, little about my mother. Ummi , in spite of her bureaucratic leanings, has been increasingly getting conservative day by day. as she is into early fifties. My Ummi and Uppa are respectively the brake and pedal of my family system. My Ummi is famous for her strict miserliness that she scoffs at every major purchase or investment and accounts to the nearest paisa.
Well back to that restaurant floor,  we were attended by two waitresses, surely from North East and more particularly , from Mizoram. Two were smiling widely with  innocence tinkling in their eyes. But deeply engrossing was the aura of sadness surrounding one of them, due to reasons unknown to us. When she was serving, I could not look at her eyes because of this inner agony pervading her beautiful tiny eyes,
While we were busy with the conversations, I started finding something different with my Ummi. She was constantly gazing at one of these girls. And Ummi's face was red , brimming with some emotion (anger??) and eyes were directed straight. I was now horrified.  I realized that these girls were not that greatly dressed, I mean not up to the covering , a Purdah clad Ummi would expect to. Was she going to admonish Assu for taking us here,? All that Post-Hajj conservativeness came up to my mind.  Morsels of food were continuing to miss her spoon as she continued gazing at her,

 We were done with food and leaving. At the entrance , we found Ummi suddenly missing. Ya Khuda, did she go to scold her? impossible , still my Ummi is unpredictable.
I ran into the restaurant  and to my shock, found Ummi with those girls. But what was she doing? She was patting on the face of the gloomy girl. And speaking in God-knows-which language. And I found that sad girl clasping something close in her hands.  Ummi returned with an empty wallet and a heart full Here eyes were brimming, as after every KTV film. But this time the face was brimming red with some emotion enough to break the Hjab  apart, She looked back again and smiled at both of them who waved back .
And we started making fun of her, connecting to a  supposed Mongoloid feature I share from my Ummi, may be that explained the connect, But Ummi never spoke. But Uppa who felt the cord connected. " She is a Mother. And how could a Mother not understand a girl having to  work so late into the night in a distant city, just to earn for her living and possibly for her family. An how can she stand the deep agony which the girl can't hide "
I  was speechless.