Trivandrum Mail

2013

2013.

 They aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the unexpected stop in the course of the journey. Nadira hovers uncertainly in the doorway of the train and Shreyas hops off. They see several other people emerging, looking around and stretching their limbs, taking pictures with the Kerala landscape that is nothing new to the two of them. Shreyas stretches his arms over his head, his shirt pulling up and exposing the small paunch he is starting to develop, just for a brief second before he looks at his wife, who is looking up and down the train as if expecting it to start moving any second.

 “Nadira, come out. It’s nice and cool.”

 She twists her lips, staring at the ground in front of her.

 “It’ll start moving, Shreyas.”

 “Then we’ll get back on. Come on.”

 She holds on to the yellow bars by the sides of the door, leaning in and out of the train, her dupatta swaying forward and back. Shreyas watches her, her childlike actions reminding him of their younger days. Briefly he wonders if she remembers that this train is where they met for the first time, when she was going to Chennai to stay with her aunt after college and he had been going to visit his mother. That had been his first time travelling on the Trivandrum Mail, and it changed his life.

 He holds out a hand to her.

 “Dira, get off the train.”

 She looks at his hand and then at him, eyes uncertain.

 “Do you trust me?” he asks.

 One would assume that when you are married to someone, their answer to ‘do you trust me?’ would always be yes, but Shreyas finds himself wondering what she will say. Then he feels her soft fingers slip into the spaces between his, her wedding ring rubbing against his skin.

 “I trust you.”

 She jumps off the train lightly, her health sandals cushioning the blow. Shreyas doesn’t let go of her hand – she notices, and she likes it. Their fingers intertwine, feeling to both of them like something they have not done in a long time but have been doing for so many years; and so it is familiar, in the way a song from childhood is familiar even when you hear it after fifteen years and you discover that the lyrics are still imprinted in your mind.

 They hold hands and look around themselves – on this side of the train there is no drop, only a grove of seemingly wild coconut trees, rocky formations and crab grass. It is drawing close to dusk, sunlight sloping in close to the ground, casting shadows in interesting ways over Shreyas’ face as Nadira watches him as he looks around. Then he starts walking towards the grove, his hand tugging her along with him. She follows. Behind them the train doesn’t move, frozen on the tracks in way that it shouldn’t be.

 “Do you remember there used to be a grove like this near my old house?”

 Shreyas’ face is tilted upwards as they enter the shade of the first tree – he absorbs the smell of dried coconut leaves and rain that lingers in the air.

 “I remember,” Nadira says.

 They both also remember that the coconut grove near Shreyas’ old house in Kottayam was the place he had first kissed her on her full, lipstick-coated lips, a full two months after they met. Nadira does not know if he remembers; Shreyas does not know if she remembers. Neither of them says anything about it.

 Shreyas walks a few steps deeper into the grove. Nadira turns back, looks at the train as if to make sure it’s still there.

 “Do you remember, Shreyas?”

 She’s not talking about the grove. He knows it. He turns back to look at the train, standing still on the tracks. Her fingers tighten with his.

 “I remember.”

 She closes her eyes briefly, eyelashes brushing her cheeks. He pulls her by the hand, close, closer than they have been in a long time. Her eyes are still closed as his fingers gently push the hair back from her eyes, from her forehead. His fingertips trail along her cheek, and move upwards, tracing the perfect curve of her eyebrow, so carefully maintained with the precious tweezers she kept in a separate drawer of her dressing table along with her tortoiseshell combs. It feels new and yet it feels like something he has never stopped doing, and something he never wants to stop doing.

 She opens her eyes. They have both forgotten the arguments about the water flask, the auto they will have to take upon reaching Chennai, the countless arguments over the past few years, about fixing the hot water in the house, about in-laws, about attending weddings, about Shreyas’ late nights. They have both remembered something greater than all those things. And then they are both drawn close, closer, by the fear of the fact that that greater thing could be so easily forgotten. They are both drawn closer by their need to feel something they already have, and have had for fourteen years.

 Their lips meet, under the dried coconut leaves and the smell of rain, with Shreyas’ calloused fingers under her chin, with her hands balled up against his chest, with his nose getting in the way a little, with her lipstick slowly smudging onto his mouth. And when they pull away they smile, they laugh. None of them vocalize their thoughts, their sudden exhilaration at their closeness. Soon they also realise that it isn’t necessary.

 ~