LOVE - SHOVE TE RAILWAY STATION !!!

Railway station- a place that always fascinates me; it has everything to offer that life has - hope, anxiety, delays, frustrations, relatives, gossip, brotherhood……and above all…a journey! Hawkers alluring kids with balloons and small toys, people picnicking with their families waiting for delayed trains, some sitting on their suitcases, vendors selling  spicy pakodas with imli chutney (home-made sauce) on mobile steel counters and my very own Masala Chai served in.….kulhars (earthen glasses)- Oh! It’s a magical sight! Moreover, many interesting stories are born on railway platforms and in trains. I have a lot of them in my archive to share with you. Here is one of them…………….

This incident took place in the summer of 1995. I was traveling from Delhi to Begusarai in Bihar (India) by a fast express to visit my maternal uncle posted there. As soon as I boarded the train, I got myself comfortably placed on the window seat of the compartment with almost seven- eight other passengers and began to satisfy my usual addiction of scanning people and speculating about what goes in their minds and lives.  

A Bihari couple was sitting next to me. The man was medium heighted, thin and dark carrying a disgusting look as a permanent feature. He was boorish creature with a piercing  voice and irritable mannerism who would invite fights for no reason. On the contrary, the wife was a submissive looking lady with symmetrical sharp features and a cultivated outlook. She was dusky but attractive.

Just then, a fat Punjabi lady in her late fifties boarded the train and occupied the window seat opposite to mine. She was about 5ft 2 inches tall,  with colored hair and lips, and was wearing a blood red coat on an electric blue salwar suit  and was carrying a very large canvas multi-colored shopping bag, which had a tartan pattern on it, and above all, her white looking glasses gave her a ‘Technicolor drawing sheet’ look! She was accompanied by another “similar looking” fat lady, undoubtedly her real sister as their resemblance suggested and her son- a tall fair chocolate boy in his mid-twenties. The boy wore a tight jeans and red sweat shirt with trendy sports’ shoes.

The chocolate boy took the seat just opposite to the bihari wife and gave her an appreciating glance from head to toe. She looked into his eyes for a while and Hmmm….my 'experienced' eyes could notice the spark…something started cooking between the boy and the wifey!

Soon, the train started crawling out of the station.

The bihari pig- mouthed man suddenly noticed that an old man sleeping on the upper berth has made pillow of his suitcase and shouted at the wifey, “look where you kept the suitcase…nonsense!” he jumped to pick up the suitcase from there, “Bhaisahib, mind your head….”, he warned the old man, “don’t know when this lady would learn to manage things…”, And before the old man could actually mind his head, he pulled the suitcase and..lo!!!...the suitcase fell down from his hands and the stuff came running out. The wifey froze with terror, “Oh my God! This brainless creature can’t even lock the briefcase properly….” he again barked on his wife, terrified, she sat down to collect the things. “Please don’t worry….I’ll put the things back,” she said softly controlling her tears at the insult. “Had you been so responsible…..God…,” he shouted and hurriedly ran towards the toilet, leaving the sentence incomplete. Nature’s call- what timing!

 “May I help you madam?” the chocolate boy made the full use of the opportunity.

“That’s OK. I’ll manage,” the wifey smiled for the first time. Both of them looked into each other’s eyes and got caught in the moment. Realizing soon that they are at a public place, they came back from their trace and began to pack the suitcase.

“Where are you going, by the way?” asked the boy softly. “Ammm…Patna…we live in Patna”, said the wifey little hesitantly. “It is quite heavy, I’ll keep it there”, the boy took the suitcase and kept it under the berth.

Perhaps for the first time, after very long, she was getting reverent and respectful treatment from somebody. Her body language became a little more confident as this little stroke of recognition from a young boy lifted her self esteem. The wifey was clearly enjoying it.  

Soon the  husband returned and sat down opposite to the colorful aunty.

“Beta…have one sandwich naa! Come on…eat..eat..mera achchha bachcha!!” the colorful aunty would stuff her son’s mouth every now and then with the endless eatables rolling out of her huge handbag.

“Please maa, I told you earlier also. I don’t want. You eat”, her ‘recently grown up’  boy felt embarrassed to be treated like a kid in front of her latest crush.

“Pushpa! What to say…these parents of marriageable daughters are so difficult to tackle…I receive so many proposals for my son everywhere I go”, boasted the drawing aunty. “I know…after all he is so handsome and well-qualified! Anybody would want a son-in-law like him”, replied Pushpa.

“Very true, Behanji…I also got so many proposals from rich, highly educated and fair complexioned girls….but we believe in this kundli system..naa, I had to compromise”, the pig mouthed became Abdulla Diwana from nowhere. “I wish I had married that cousin of yours. At least she was fairer than you”, he burst out to his wife.

“As if those girls could find no other way of committing suicide rather than getting married to you….…You Splenetic clown!” I murmured to myself bandaging my injured ego.…being a dusky female myself, in this fairness obsessed Indian society. But the wifey was undisturbed. Obviously enough, she was secretly rejoicing her encounter with romance.

For the rest of the journey, while the ignorant people wasted their precious time in boasting cursing and gossiping, the two intelligent people were making the best use of their time by crazily stealing every opportunity to stare each other.

“Madam ji! President of India is not coming to pack our luggage. Get up and wind up the things. Patna is the next station”, her husband’s irritating tone dragged her out of her fantasy world.

The train entered Patna railway station. Both of them looked at each other with eyes of helplessness. That was the end for me……

It seems to be an incomplete story, but those few hours, for sure, gave the two- the lady and the boy - a relaxation from the clutches of a ruthless husband and overbearing mother. They enjoyed; they travelled in ecstasy; they looked happy, they were over whelmed- and that’s all that matters. Isn’t it??

A lot has been spoken about love affairs and infatuations, but apart from these long relationships, we meet certain people in life who walk only a few steps with us and go away silently without any emotional hang over. I call them “Relationships of Curiosity”. They make you feel “valued”; they make you feel attractive; they make you  feel “worth”.

Let's face it- each one of us must have enjoyed such short harmless encounters with romance in our lives. In our social system, romance, unfortunately remains missing from our lives. These few moments of euphoria bring freshness into our stale routine life and rejuvenate us. I don’t know if I m politically correct or not; but I believe that these “Relationships of Curiosity” play an important role in creating memories that make the journey of our life more vibrant and spicy…. 

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Smriti Bhardwaj.