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My first story - Tamil Nadu Express

It’s eerie in the station. It shouldn’t be its Chennai central with 18 platforms and trains running in and out all the time, but it was early January and very late at night, ideally not a travelling time for most people. Only an occasional sound of sledging diesel engine or a piercing pipe of an electric engine is disturbing the silence of the platform. Not that there aren’t any people on the platform, there were many of them waiting for Tamil Nadu express to arrive into the platform. Tonight it is being stubborn, a technicality delaying its departure from Chennai central.

 

In the dim foggy night on platform 4, she was looking. Looking at something only she knows. He looked bored, smoking cigarette after cigarette. She turned to look at him; he couldn’t help but meet her eyes. He can see a very beautiful face, large eyes, and very fair skin with garlands of jasmines on her front covering her ample bosom. He couldn’t stop to look at her exposed waist between her white blouse and sari but quickly pulled his eyes back to her face. He could notice a veiled smile. She knows she is beautiful.

“Tamil Nadu Express is now entering into Platform 4 and will leave in 20 minutes. We apologise for the delay.” The train announcer parroted the same in Hindi and Tamil and the mike went dead with a rugged thud, clearly the announcer banged the mike down in utmost contempt.

 

First Class compartments of India are the last vestiges of colonialism. They are so expensive for what they offer, only government officials and people who could not get the air-conditioned car tickets travel in them. When he entered the coupe she was already there. He smiled and she returned a smug smile of conquest.

 

“I am in C3”, he stuttered as if to explain he is here coincidentally and did not really follow her. She smiled sweetly but did not say anything and returned her gaze to the tracks next to the train.

“I am going back to the platform to get some coffee before the train moves, would you like to have something?”

“It's 01 am and you want coffee?”

“I am getting off in Vijayawada, you see, it’s just 5 hours, so can’t really sleep.” he offered an explanation.

“A bottle of mineral water please”, she tried to open her purse but it wouldn’t open. He quickly asked her to give him the money later and got off.

“He is a very handsome guy and a gentleman. Except he doesn’t seem to have any control on his eyes.” Then she smiled to herself. She always enjoyed a bit of attention. Her husband hated it and went into bouts of jealousy whenever he sees something like this. He is a small man, so he can’t go and slug it out with the ‘perpetrator’ and so tightly bites his teeth and takes it out on her later. It could be her dressing once, her smiles the next time, a look this time, and an expression in the eyes the next time. In the beginning she tried to explain that it’s not her fault she is so beautiful but he never came round to the fact that she didn’t act on these attention and remained a faithful wife for many years. They went apart in many ways –mental, physical and even priorities, desires, aspirations, ideas they were miles apart. They were man and wife only on surnames. Years of loveless marriage, she started to question her loyalty to this relationship. First it was dinner and a conversation and soon flowers and declarations of undying love and soon a full blown affair with a friend from college, life was getting better. She knows Karthik loved her and she… loved spending time with him.

 

Sounds of the moving train, catching speed and changing tracks woke her out of her reverie. She wondered where the man was. She needn’t have wondered for very long, he came in slightly panting but seemed to be in control.

“Didn’t get time for coffee, there was a queue but here is your bottle of water”.

“Thank you, you are very kind. I am a very light sleeper, I can wake you up in Vijayawada if you want to catch some sleep.”

“No it’s fine, I have to be awake”.

“That’s fine, I am going all the way to Delhi so this train is my home for the next 36 hours. So to thank you properly, I will stay awake with you till Vijayawada. Let’s talk and get to know each other”.

He looked a bit uncomfortable, with an expression of something unexpected presenting itself.

“I wont bite don’t worry, so tell me your name”.

“Karthik” he told her in a confident manner of a guy who is used to being asked his name by beautiful girls. There was a flicker in her eyes, he noticed.

A deafening honk and the turbulent wind of a superfast train on the next track hit both of them. He waited till it’s gone and asked.

“You know any other karthik?”

“My…” she stammered only for a split second to recover and say, “husband”.

He looked like he was pleasantly surprised. “But your name is Vidya Raman, how can your husband’s name be Karthik?”

“How do you know my name? I didn’t tell you” she was curious but apprehensive.

“I saw it on the reservation charts when I came back from the kiosk”.

“Did I say husband, I meant my friend.” She smiled sweetly but he could sense discomfort.

He appraised her silently with no eyeball movement for a second and then said, “These days everyone has a ‘friend’, and there is no need to be uncomfortable.”

It was her time to be curious now, “Do you have a ‘friend’?”

“No, I am a loner, I like it this way.” he replied brusquely.

“No one likes to be alone. I know I don’t. Karthik left me an year ago and there has been no one ‘like’ karthik.” She sounded morose but suddenly there was a glint in her eyes.

“Why do you like being alone? Is it because you haven’t found anyone yet?”

“Why do you not like being alone? Why karthik? You don’t love your husband?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question”, she demurely smiled. “But I will tell you. My husband doesn’t love me as a person, he married me as a trophy wife, someone to show off and then he couldn’t handle the attention, and we went apart. Karthik is a childhood friend who I ran into in a temple. We couldn’t stop talking. “

“Why did he leave you then?”

There was pain in her eyes. “He didn’t leave me. He committed suicide because I wouldn’t marry him.”

“Oh I am sorry. If you love him, you could have divorced your husband”.

“I have lost faith in the institution of marriage you see. I was worried that what is otherwise a beautiful relationship would be spoilt by marriage. Also his wife would never divorce him.”

He wondered why she is telling all this to a stranger. He was not interested initially but now he is curious. More curious as to how she can tell all this to a stranger than the content of what she is saying.

“You are wondering why I am telling all this. To a stranger, someone I met on the platform”.

“Platform?”

“Don’t think I have not noticed you looking at me.”

“I wasn’t.” He tried denial but gave up instantly. “I thought you were looking at me. It's flattering to get the attention of such a beautiful person”.

“So you think I am beautiful.”

“Used to. When the train started, now I think you are beautiful and are in pain. Lonely and can’t stop talking, even with a stranger. No risk at all as I will be gone in a few hours and you probably wont see me ever again.”

“You didn’t come across like a stranger and I wasn’t looking at you. I was dreaming about the situation. I saw you in silhouette with a light up cigarette and imagined an empty platform of just you and me and before my imagination could go any further you looked and I had to turn my gaze”.

“If I didn’t look what would you have imagined?”

“Curious? Must be hot under the collar?”

“I am not a monk”, He declared.

“What are you then?”

He stood up and opened his bag from the upper berth and brought it down. He looked back at her; she was patiently waiting for an answer, not someone to give up.

“Just a man trying to do a job”

“You never told me what you do”

“I help people. I don’t ask too many questions. Only sometimes.” He then looked into the howling air from the window and muttered under his breath “like now”.

“What did you say?”

He did not reply and thought its better to talk about her than about him. He was a loner and was never comfortable talking about him.

“So do you think all this was worth it? Jeopardising your marriage, a short fling with a lover who eventually took his own life?”

“Yes, it is worth it! My husband wanted a trophy wife, Karthik wanted his love forever, and the only person who got nothing in the scheme of things was I. So in a way it was worth it, as it came close to what I wanted in life. Excitement, change, secrecy, loss of all in such short burst of time. I know I sound selfish but that’s me.”

“There is nothing wrong in being selfish only there would be consequences and you should be brave to face them.”

“Yeah, I am facing the consequences. I suffer from loneliness everyday. I look for love everywhere and all I see is a world lacking in genuine sensitivity to entertain another person’s feelings and vanity, wants and needs, needs and desires.

“It's not all that bad”.

There was a flash in her eyes and she looked at him sharply. “It is”, she paused and then looked at him with a certain expectation in her eyes, “you think you can make it better?”

He was looking for an opening all this time, this was the first time he saw one.

“Of course, I am, at the moment, aren’t I? I am listening to you with sensitivity and you are not that lonely anymore, are you?” He moved his legs for his feet to touch hers. He could see she was getting excited; her breath was sharper, her look vague, her lips quivering and her ample bosom tightening.

“But this is just for now, isn’t it?” years of loneliness have taken their toll and turned her into a woman desperate and paranoid.

The gap between them is getting smaller and smaller now both their hands inches away from each other on the table separating them.

“No, this is for as long as you live”, there was sincerity in his voice and coldness in his eyes. He swiftly moved his left hand onto her right, clutching it tightly and in one smooth pull had both of them standing in a tight embrace.

 

She looked at him with wide open eyes, her cheeks were red, and her lips were opening to scream. He put his hands on her mouth and quietly pushed down to the floor. He pulled the knife back from her body, the area he chose, between her bosom and the left side of her waist. Her rib cage is clearly broken with the tip of the knife entering her heart. Death was instantaneous.

 

Vijayawada was just half an hour away. He quickly moved the body onto the bed, cleaned all the areas he has touched, wiped the blood and the fingerprints on the knife and threw it hard out of the window.

 

As he got out in Vijayawada, he thought about her. She was a fine woman; only fault was that she made an insanely jealous woman insanely jealous. Karthik’s wife didn’t let her go after his suicide. And for him, it was just another assignment. A false name, false reservation, a little disguise and none’s the wiser.