The speaker had associated only ugliness and annoyance with the old woman until he had the awareness of her strength as well as her helplessness. With this realisation, she becomes the very symbol of the Indian heritage, and the other things, which had until then been considered monuments of heritage, begin to crack. The poet seems to suggest that it is the Indian heritage in flesh and blood that we have to value.

The reference to the hills, temples and sky cracking and falling could also mean the radical change in the hitherto held opinion of the speaker. The shock the man receives in looking at the sky, perhaps as blue as the woman’s eyes which are like bullet holes leads to his enlightened perception of the woman and her connection to this old land. The man notes that as he looks at the woman, and the cracks around her eyes, the cracks seem to spread to the landscape around her: to the hills, the temples and even the sky. But he sees that even though the sky may fall and shatter around her, she is untouched: ‘shatterproof’.

In the midst of the life that has reduced her to trying to earn some money as a guide for tourists, and seen only as an old woman to the tourists – not worth their time and barely worth their notice – her resolve is strong. She is a part of the land, as old as it is: she is as immovable. She lives, the man realises, with what is made available to her. With the man’s realization, he feels as if he has been reduced to nothing more than his money, for he does not have that kind of connection to his land or his heritage. And perhaps, in light of the trials and tribulations of life, he is really the unimportant one – beyond the small change in his pocket – but she stands, unbreakable and strong.