What's in a name?: A Usual Train Journey

She reaches her office at about ten minutes to nine and that is almost her usual. Resting her things on her table she settles on her chair. Leaning against her chair with closed eyes, she is trying to tranquilize herself to pursue the tasks ahead for the day. She hears a soft clattering noise against the window behind her, it had started to drizzle and slowly the drizzle was churning into a downpour.

She wanted to sip a hot coffee, looking at her watch and decided to get one and settle down for the chores. Quickly walking out of her cabin into the lobby greeting the people she knew, reached the coffee vending machine at the corner of the floor next to the stairway that leads to the Office of Journals, an illustrated magazine company, since 1875.

Lost in the thoughts of the day ahead and racking her brain for information about the last evening details of the office to catch up, she walks quietly to the vending machine. It was a long verandah with huge glass windows evenly spaced for sufficient flow of wind during the hot summer afternoons. The building is an ancient one, built in with influences of French architecture.

She could watch the pouring rain, flooding the path way, the people running hither to shelter and standing under the sunshades and the corridors of the office buildings. Rain has always fascinated her and she had always wanted to play in the rain as a kid, whenever possible. She used to do it even now sometimes, though followed with strong consultations from her mother about her stupid behavior. She never paid attention to her taunting and always pacified her mother with her own solid talents of argument.

She wanted to run down and get wet in the rain. She reached the vending machine and started to make a coffee for her. She did not realize that she was almost blocking the way to the stairway. Hearing, a voice from behind asking to make way, she turns to face the voice; it is the same face that she locked her eyes, in the morning with an intense gaze.

There was a moment of recognition on both the faces, followed by a moment of awkwardness. She parts and he climbs up, but after a few stairs, he sneaks a look to see if she is still there down. A smile appears on his face as he sees her looking up towards him. She walks back to her cabin and ponders how did he happen to come to the same building? Did he follow her here? How did he know she was here? How did this happen? Why did I not notice him while walking from the station to the building? I thought somebody was behind, I knew. It must have been him? Her thoughts were running wild with all the weird combinations of a feminine mind.

With the demands of work she had to push away the recurring thoughts and immersed herself. She loses track of time and space and it is almost time to get back home. She looks at her watch it is 6.45 pm almost close to 7 pm, she has a train to her place at 7.30 pm. She has to start now to avoid missing it. She starts collecting her things and switches off the lights in her cabin, closes the cabin door quietly and walks down the aisle looking at the few monitor lights that are still on in some corners and people brooding over it.

She walks and reaches the elevators of her floor, pressing the down key, waiting for it to arrive. She recollects the list of things that she wanted to do when getting home. She was just trying to get things in order across the thoughts that were flying up and down in her mind. She was startled by the beep of the elevator. The doors of the elevator opened on her floor, looking at her were a pair of eyes.

Hesitant to get in, she just looked on, the elevator doors started to close; a pair of hands on the either side ran to stop the closing doors. She gathered herself and stepped inside; confining herself to a corner next to the elevator buttons, and the elevator started it journey towards the ground floor. The few distance of the elevator loomed large in her eyes and it looked as if an eternity till it hit the ground floor, with a thud.

She gets impatient to move out of the elevator, and she hears a small chuckle from behind. Stepping out of the building, she starts walking towards the bend of the road from where she has to take the sub-way to reach the station. She starts descending the steps of the sub-way when she hears howling voices from below and loud cries of people mixed with some heavy laughter. Her brain registers this as some trouble below, wondering what to do next, she slowly turns back to see if that pair of eyes is behind her. To her relief it is exactly a few yards behind her and then she quickly tries to look into her hand bag and tries to locate something. She keeps searching for something till the pair of eyes catches up with her and almost about to leave her behind with a glimpse of her through the corner of his eyes.

She puts her bag on to her shoulders again and simply follows the man at a close level then before and they enter the long tunnel way to reach the other end of stairs. He too hears the sound coming from underneath and looks around for help, finding it unusually empty at this point of time. There are some electric lights broken forcibly and shattered, thought it isn’t all that dark in, it has its own touch of eerie feeling.

He looks behind to find her following within the distance of clasping her elbow in case of any trouble, feeling satisfied and with a smile to his lips he walks further into the tunnel. His mind tells him, on hearing these voices below, she must has stood there on the way looking into her hand bag searching for nothing, and getting me past her, clever girl.

On hearing some sounds of people walking through the tunnel the trouble makers, get frightened and not wanting to get caught run hitter leaving the lone man in distress. They quickly run to the stairway and reach the road on the above and gets lost among the crowd on the other side.
The distress man, giving a sigh of relief looks on to the two silhouettes emerging from the dark outset of the tunnel and not knowing who the silhouettes are really makes way for the stairs and climbs to his own gained safety, thanking, the silhouettes in his mind for the safety they brought him today from the nasty crowd. He walks away to his destination with quick paces looking around closely with a precautious mind.

The two pair of eyes closely behind each other walks slowly cautiously and reaches the other end, to their astonishment they see the whole lobby empty void of people. Relieved, by the sight of nobody in the corridor, they walk in peace and ascent the stairs. Realizing the closeness, she tries to slow done her paces, and stops at a shop to pick some fruits without any intention to buy.
He quickly glances from his corner of the eye and walks away further not to embarrass her, grinning. He reaches the station, before her and takes his ticket waits for train at the half-empty station; it is 7.20pm. Another ten minutes more for the train to arrive. He looks at the entrance for that familiar figure, and sub-consciously looks at his watch though he knows the time.

She enters with hurried glances and paces, finds an empty chair and slumps on to the chair to calm her erratic heart beats and the constant thundering of the mind and the heart. Seeing her enter he finds his lips voluntarily moving into a smile, wondering what this lady has done to him in just less than an eight hour.

He wonders when he can go up to her and talk to her, introduce himself and then talk about his sudden feeling that occurred inside him. He keeps wondering about it when the loud horn of the train scatters his thinking. They wait for the train to halt on to the platform and enter it. She gathers her bags. She stopped at the fruits stall not knowing what to buy or need to buy but ended up picking some four varieties of fruits about each a quarter kilogram, not knowing their substantial use. She is still racking her brain for the reason for so many fruits at one instant.
They both get into the compartment and there are only two empty places. They empty place is right opposite to each other. Both wonder if the other would sit in front of them, he gives up the place for her to sit and she is seen standing, for him to sit. Both smile at the instant and they seat themselves on to their respective places and get lost in their own worlds wondering if they start a conversation where to start from.

She covers her face with a book, ‘Deception Point’ and he with ‘Angels and Demons’ both the books are bestsellers from Dan Brown. Both of them not reading, everything seems to stop in front of their eyes.

The train is pulling into her destination, he knows she is going to get down, but he feels the solace that she will be in here again tomorrow. He wants to talk to her but does not know what and how. She gets ready to descend and grabs her things. The train slowly runs into the station and is puffing hard to come to a halt, she sits in her place a second longer not knowing why, but she seems to be stuck to the place. She tries to make a move and that is a little trouble for her, she pulls through her things and rises from her seat unwillingly and wondering why on all days did this station of mine arrive so quickly.

She almost stands up when she hears a weak voice with the words, “Good night, see you tomorrow”, she looks up and meets the pair of eyes that said it all, again. Not able to hold her emotions, her mouth opens into a forgotten smile of recognition and acknowledges the greeting and she climbs down the train, with a heavy heart. She is walking on the platform, the train starts moving forward, the compartment she got down from, moves past her slowly, she looks up to find the face at the door waving at her and her half-raised hand in the air till the train leaves the station.