Trivandrum Mail

2013

2013.

The stickiness of lipstick is a familiar feeling to both of them. Shreyas remembers Nadira giggling on countless occasions when they pulled away from a kiss with his lips stained with red. She would wipe his mouth with the end of her dupatta, still giggling, and it proved a futile exercise because when she was done he would simply pull her closer by her waist and kiss her again.

 He hasn’t had her lipstick on his lips in a long time. Now as she sits beside him, a fresh coat glowing on her lips, he finds himself craving that feeling again. He steals a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. The last rays of sun fighting through the clouds seep in through the window, spreading on her face. Her lips stand out – Shreyas lets his eyes linger on them. She rubs them together, evening the colour out, and when she is evidently satisfied, her mouth settles in its usual firm line. The bump on her nose is more pronounced in this light. Her eyes glow a deeper brown. Shreyas can also see the burn on her neck, under the shining strands of hair, as it has been since the time he met her.

 He realizes that this is how everyone around her sees her – with shining, loosely plaited hair, a straight centre parting, large, untrusting eyes, bumpy nose, glowing skin and plump, attractive lips. And he realizes that it is this act of seeing her that everyone does, and yet he is the one person who does more, who sees her when no one else does, in all times of day, in the seconds after she wakes up, face bare and eyes slightly puffy, hair slick from the oil she dabs into its roots at night; or after she returns from a long day teaching, her sari coming loose and her lipstick smudged around the corner of her mouth from the water she gulps from the flask she takes with her, sweat beading on her forehead from the bus she takes to come home, loose hairs sticking to the side of her neck; or just before bed at night, when she is the most beautiful in his eyes, face cleansed, traces of white talcum powder at the base of her throat and between her breasts, ears free from the golden earrings she wears every day, hair loose and combed, falling in a sheet to the small of her back, and like this she wafts around the house in her nightgown, trailing the scent of her powder, and sometimes Shreyas finds himself wanting to just stop and inhale her, and sometimes he does, burying his nose in the crook of her neck, making her giggle and swat him away like some annoying fly. He doesn’t mind.

 And so he sees her, all of her, in that moment with the dusky light falling on her dusky skin. And he thinks that he should like to kiss her, to smudge her lipstick onto his lips, but he can’t because their curtain is open and across the aisle there is a young man playing travel Scrabble with his son, and every five minutes someone or the other walks noisily up and down.

 He thinks about holding her hand. Before he can act on his actions, the train jerks, and stops, the rhythm of wheels on metallic tracks stopping abruptly and low hiss preceding the silence that follows.

 On an impulse, he looks out of his window to see the station name – and to his surprise he sees nothing but patches of wild grass and rocks, and a small, sloping drop of a few meters, beyond which a paddy field stretches, fringed on the edges by coconut trees. There is no platform, no signboard, no signal.

 “Where are we?” his wife murmurs, speaking after a long time, leaning slightly to the side so she too can see out of the window.

 “I don’t know,” he answers.

 She leans back inside, looking around their compartment as if someone would materialize and tell her what station they have stopped at. When nothing happens for five whole minutes, Shreyas asks the young man across the aisle where they have stopped. He answers, says he doesn’t know. His son pulls on his sleeve, asking if they can get off the train, the man says no.

 Nadira looks at Shreyas the same time he looks at her. For the first time in a long time they both know that the other is thinking the same thing.

 “Should we?” Nadira asks doubtfully, chewing on her bottom lip.

 “We should,” Shreyas says immediately, making to stand up, and then he smiles, a wide smile, and lines crease his eyes. For the first time in a long time, Nadira feels her heart beat faster at the sight of it.

 ~