Bibi crossed my path years ago, when I was living in Mauritius. She taught me many a lesson, though she did not know it.

She was Hindu, and fondly known as Bibi L'Eglise, having spent many years cleaning the local Catholic church in a town called Quatre Bornes, where we had our first home.   I had met her after Sunday mass, when, as she was standing in front of a crucifix she turned to ask me if I had a job for her. So I employed her and soon her daughter.

 She remained in the habit of praying at the feet of the crucifix, which stood outside the church of St Jean, when the going got especially tough. It was one of her lifelines that crucifix. When I asked her why a Hindu would want to pray to a crucifix "Every little help," she told me.

Bibi looked after our eldest, Camille, while her daughter did the housework.

Another lifeline was a multi-armed Indian goddess a statue of which she kept surrounded by candles in her little hut. It was her altar. Those candles were her one luxury.

Bibi came from a family of some 15 children. Or maybe it was 16. Sometimes she counted the ones that were dead - stillborn, with tetanus, dehydrated - sometimes not.

Numbers and figures meant nothing to Bibi. The date of her birth was as obscure as her age. These things were not important to her. She did not know what a birthday cake was and did not care what they were doing in California. Indeed, she had no knowledge of the world beyond the town in which she lived and did not seem interested either.

Her childhood had been spent in one of the seaside villages. They had never had enough to eat. There was no Red Cross at the time to distribute milk to the needy and they were brought up on flour mixed with water. In patois creole she would tell me about her life, over coffee, usually on a Saturday morning when I was not working.

Bibi was estranged from her husband who was now looked after by her mother, in a hut next to hers, in a compound where other members of the family had a small abode. These huts were made of corrugated iron sheeting. The tropical rain pelting down on the roof made an infernal noise in the rainy season. The sun, at the height of a hot sub-tropical summer, turned indoors into an inferno.

Water was collected from a communal tap outside but inspite of the seasonal torrential rain, often, even that tap was empty. Water management did not feature high on the government's priority list.

Sanitary facilities consisted of a pail or the mango or banana tree outside.

Just before the mild Mauritian winter set in, I would collect the month's newspapers and drive her home with them so that she could use them to cover the cracks between the corrugated iron sheets.

The cyclone season was an anxious time. Would the corrugated iron roof, which was held in place with a few concrete blocks, fly away with the strong winds?

Her possessions were so few that losing them did not worry her. Hers was a hand to mouth existence. But where would the blocks land? She managed to survive many a cyclone without a serious mishap. She was lucky. Each year there were casualities from these corrugated sheets or the heavy blocks as the high winds sent them hurtling through the air.

Bibi was a gentle soul. I never heard her shout at anyone. She placidly played with our daughter, Camille, and lulled her to sleep far more quickly than I ever did, singing to her in Tamil, for her ancestors had arrived in Mauritius from the south of India. I learnt to spot them for they were darker than the average Indian.

The Indians in Mauritius had come as indentured labourers to work in the sugar cane fields, after the abolition of slavery in 1835. They came to replace the African slaves for by 1839 the slaves started gradually to abandon the sugar cane plantations. There were some 76,774 slaves at the time.

But many Tamils had also come to the Isle de France in 1735 and had participated considerably in the construction of the harbour of its capital, Port Louis.

Bibi always arrived in a wornout sari and each morning, when she arrived she left her rubber savattes on the doormat outside. Her saris were faded and full of holes. It was the rats, she would tell me, which invaded her little hut at night. She had one good sari which she kept in our home. Rats and the damage they cause were just another obscenity she took in her stride. It was her karma she would tell me and hoped that when she would return to earth next time round she would have a better life. It was important to accept one's life and not rebel against it.

Bibi never grumbled. She never begged. She never stole anything. Hers was a noble heart. She would sometimes turn up with half a dozen delicious samosas which she had labouriously fried over a kerosene lamp. Her cooking was done on that.

She had the wisdom to escape want by rejecting all wants. Bibi had realized that it is our unfulfilled desires and expectations which cause a large part of our unhappiness. She had learnt that if you are willing to take the punishment, you are halfway through the battle.

Like many poor Hindus she was thin and dignified. But there came a time when I knew she was getting weaker, thinner. She told me, reluctantly, for fear of losing her job I suppose, that she had a disease but she could not tell me what it was because she did not know. I became alarmed. We went up to hospital where she was receiving treatment. I finally tracked down the doctor who was taking care of her. She had some rare form of leukemia he told me. "She's an interesting case. We only get two or so such cases a year. There is nothing to be done. The disease will take its course."

Our Bibi had become a mere case, a number.

Bibi had one wish she had shared with me several times. One of her sons was in France. He had been there for many years and each year he said he was coming to see her. But each year he could not find enough money to pay for the expensive passage.

One day Bibi arrived all smiles. He really was going to arrive the following week and she asked me to bake a cake in his honour and would I put his initials on it. RV. Ramoo Virahsawmy.

Ramoo did come and she brought him to see us.The shine in her dark brown eyes which had disappeared because of her illness, momentarily returned.

A couple of weeks later her youngest daughter Vilamba, who kept our home clean, came one evening sobbing, to tell us that the angel of death had called and her mother had died during the night.

Bibi died as quietly as she had lived without disturbing anyone. Her wish fulfilled, her son at her side, she finally stopped struggling with life and disease. She embraced death as she had embraced life, without flinching. She had that intangible quality, courage.

The following day I went to pay her my last respects. This time it was my turn to leave my shoes outside her humble home. She lay there in her corrugated iron hut conveying an image of death but looking peaceful as she had always done.

And irony of ironies her bed was covered with brand new saris: silk saris, cotton saris, saris in all the colours of the rainbow, a last gift from her friends and relatives.

Life spared Bibi nothing. It mocked her to the bitter end.

But she has permanently fixed in my heart for she was an example to me and taught me many lessons. If karma truly exists I am certain her next one will be a much better one than her last. It would be only fair. But then, as we know, life isn't fair.