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

Many a times, we come across this modest feature in our daily lives. I have been a target of it and I am sure most of us can relate to this situation described here.

We see a lot of strangers in the most common places, such as bus stops, restaurants, city traffics, neighborhood, the next flat, the office corridor, coffee points, ticket counters, on a journey, so on and so forth. But we just don’t bother about this strange feeling of strangers unless, the eyes of two strangers at stake are held in a gaze for few multiple seconds precisely.

The hero and heroine of this story are such two individuals who happen to have an eternal glance on each other accidently, how the future events lead them.

It is a cloudy morning, wafting the city with cool breeze. The change in the climate is a welcome to the city, which otherwise have got used to the long sunny days with dust, pollution, heavy traffic congestions and sweat. The welcomed climatic change, I guess will do its turn of events in many households, where the husbands will keep cool, help the wives in their daily chores, with cruel intentions known to both. The new born silently slumbering in the comfort of the air, giving the new mother her peace of mind, the schools kids merrily running about to school, the heavy traffic congestions eased out and moving in a serene pace. The city is lit, the young girls cheering away to college, the young boys having fun watching the bright colors, the city is jubilant.

It does its magic on her, too. She gets up early, has time for her morning walk, in the gardens spun around her apartment. She returns from the refreshing morning walk, takes a cool shower, listens to music while dressing up, is all set to leave for her office at about 8.10 am to be in office by 9.00 am, when the day kick starts itself.

She dresses a little advertent today, unlike the other days of office. The pale yellow cotton sari with the stiffness from the starch, against her sleek body, compliments her skin. She walks swiftly to catch the train at the suburban station to office. She is standing at the platform number 1, waiting for the train to arrive, looking at her slender wrist, which holds a brown strapped square white dialed watch. It is almost, time it arrives; she leans forward and watches the engine rolling on to the platform. She steps aside subconsciously; the train slowly rolls onto the platform. She looks for the first-class compartment, which is normally placed after the ladies compartment; suddenly her eyes catch a pair of eyes that is looking out from the comfort of a window seat in the first class compartment.

It must have been a multiple of seconds that locked their eyes in an intense gaze, but for her it looked like eternity and she quickly turns her gaze to the halting train. She quickly gets in and settles down at the farthest end of the compartment away from the glanced look.

He is well-built and smart at first look. A normal looking man in an extra-ordinary setting of life with the comforts of the world has made him look like those entire clan of well-dressed and ethic men in the city. He usually has his corner seat reserved towards his journey every morning. He did not have problem with this little cozy comfort of his, because his destination is the first station from where he starts his journey to office.

He usually gets seated himself in the corner quickly with a few cursory glances around the people in the compartment and then gets immersed in the book that he reads as a habit to kill the time in travel. Today, morning he could not concentrate on the novel in his hand, which read, ‘Angels and Demons’ by Dan Brown and started grazing around the moving space outside his window. It is almost his window now, for the year and half that has gone by and has been travelling by the train sitting at the same window, almost a ritual.

He hasn’t caught anyone’s attraction till date and never has been cross examined like he had been today, other than the ticket examiner at the counters of the station. His eyes have never spotted a damsel with whom he had the intense glimpse and he felt something happening inside him, due to the after effects of the incident. His brain started to analyze the possible combinations of reasons why this could have happened. He was wondering, why, me?

But the glimpse seemed to speak volumes in his mind now; they were translating the every detail that the eye captured in the couple of minutes of the eternity. He could remember the way her hair swayed to the wind that blew due to the halting train, he remembered the color of her eyes, he remembered the neatly done eyebrows that covered her eyes, the face was bright, a small smile curved to the end of her mouth, the dangling ear rings, her sari pallu held in her hand, her hand bag on her shoulders, her dark brown intense look of the eye, the instant withdrawal, the haze with she got into the compartment, her eyes rolling for the farthest place in the compartment, and she settling down in the corner from his sight and the door of the compartment as a shield between them.

Oh! Gosh, just a few minutes of intense gaze can capture so many vivid images, never did he knew his brain is capable of such things, or did it dawn on him that even when he is ignorant, mind is working at its own pace. Did she also recollect such images of him? Who knows? He started reading the book, “Robert Langdon, the professor was running on the streets of Paris, hunting down the killer along with this beautiful lady.” Hmm…she is beautiful registered the brain in an instant. He looked out of the window, gave a small happy content smile and continued reading the book.

(to be continued...)