Trivandrum Mail

1999

1999.

Time passed slowly on the train. They stopped at three more stations before midnight and still Nadira and Shreyas found themselves alone in the compartment. At ten-thirty Shreyas had taken a bundle of clothes from his bag and disappeared for ten minutes; he came back dressed in white cotton drawstring pants and the kind of plain, loose t-shirt Nadira’s brother wore all the time at home. He carried his shoes in his hands, feet now in blue and white rubber chappals. He had large feet with tiny curls of hair on the middle, curly like the hairs on his head, Nadira noticed, and stubby pink toenails with practically no white showing. Still in her day clothes, she stayed curled up by the window and watched him out of the corner of her eye as he put away his uniform, shoving his shoes, with the socks stuffed deep in them, under the seat. It was the first time she was seeing someone change for the night on a train journey. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to change into pyjamas for the night.

 When his things were back in place, he sat down right opposite Nadira, mimicking her position, leaning against the wall by the window, hands in his lap. She glanced at him. He caught her eye. In that moment, he also thought she was beautiful.

 “Are you hungry?”

 He knew she must have been. Behind her steely eyes there was a slight frailty which surfaced occasionally. He could spot it easily – and now was one such time. He felt the need to help this young woman, in whatever way he could, even if it meant standing next to her as she washed her face, too afraid to venture alone.

 Nadira felt, irrationally, that maybe his willingness to help her would dwindle now that he was not dressed in his uniform, now that he looked more like an ordinary man than anything else, not obliged in any way – and yet here he was, offering her leftover puttu in a plastic box because he knew she had not eaten. He was not Shreyas the police officer anymore, and she liked the way he looked when he wasn’t in his uniform, he suited perfectly the name Shreyas. She liked the way he seemed more relaxed now, letting the train sway him more easily, she liked the way he would twiddle his toes occasionally as if to remind them that they weren’t in the confines of polished brown leather shoes anymore, that they were free to move any which way they liked. In some way the act of him sitting there dressed in drawstring pyjamas and a t-shirt seemed more personal to Nadira, more like what he perhaps wore at home or to a friend’s house – and she found herself wondering what he was like in the company of those known to him. He seemed like the kind of person who would not be the centre of attention, but the one who would pepper the anecdote being narrated with wisecracks and witticisms and puns, the one who would laugh and make everyone else laugh, the one who would sit back in a wooden easy chair on the porch, legs crossed, stomach curving inward under the folds of his t-shirt, foot jiggling slightly, eyes lined with laughter, new lines being added every minute.

 She realized that she still had to answer his question.

 “No,” she said.

 He held her gaze firmly for a second. Then he turned away and zipped open his bag’s front pocket from which emerged the clear plastic box of puttu and a stainless steel spoon. Both were handed to Nadira.

 “Eat,” he said. “You’re hungry.”

 She looked at the box and spoon in his large hands, with hair on the knuckles like he had hair on his feet, and then at his face. His eyebrows were turned up in the middle slightly, his forehead creased, his eyes imploringly wide and still full of years’ worth of smiles.

 She took the box and spoon. The side of her hand brushed the side of his.

 “Thank you,” she said, and she looked him in the eye.

 “You’re very welcome.”

 He smiled and lines creased his eyes, and for the first time Nadira felt her heart beat faster at the sight of it.

~