Rayil Snegam.

Thanks to L for sending me a link to this song...

Do I believe in love stories? Yes... Do I believe in happy endings and walking into the sunset? Yes... Do I believe that love is blind? No...not until a year ago. Not until I got engaged, to another man. Not until I smelt the scent of rustic in his breath. Not until rough, calloused hands grabbed mine in a delicate, firm grip. When, for a moment, we stood too close for comfort. That's probably the moment I began to believe.


U.S return. Master's degree in telecommunication. Slender, fair - wheatish would have been more accurate - beautiful? Perhaps. "Artist" would have been stretching the truth. I dab with oil paints occasionally, searching for answers in the abstract. Sometimes, impressions from my life find their way into my sketches. His silhouette is one such impression. I don't realize it until the morning rays fall on the easel. Clear as it can be. It is his face, alright. Vulnerable yet masculine. Attractive not even by a stretch of imagination. A train in the background; and my failing attempt at art would have told you the whole story.

***

Anyway, that was the description of my "Seeking grooms" advertisement in the Hindu. Except the artist bit. Name withheld of course. Not anything spectacular about Priya anyway. My father did not share the price of the newspaper advertisement. But, I can imagine my dad peering through his thick glasses counting wrinkled currency notes carefully before handing it to the newspaper agency. Money down the drain. At least that's what I thought then. Who would know that I would be married to the very first "prospective match" that came through the advertisement? But, I digress. The particular painting in question draws upon another man for inspiration. Not my husband who I very much love and adore. Another man I met in a train.

I returned from America with a romantic, dreamy India in mind. The India of the past - three years to be exact. I did not apply for jobs in America after my graduation. I knew I wanted to return back. I did not take into account how much India had changed in my absence. I returned to the object of my homesickness and nostalgia. To the country that tormented me on lonely, winter nights in a one-bedroom apartment that I shared with a 35 year old post-graduate student. We had nothing in common but it was easier on my wallet and that was good. She smoked. The stale, stinking air empty of words and noise made my India that much more dear and welcoming. It was in those days that my creative pursuits - pencil sketches graduating to oil paints - helped me. I convinced myself that art was indeed a good friend, a great listener no matter how listless my stories. So, I packed my art and my dreams in a small bundle and came back home. However, the country I wished to come back to, no longer remained. Perhaps if my mother had lived, she would have sat down with me and gently cautioned me against the tricks that the mind can play, as she combed my unruly, length hair. She never let me cut my hair when she was with me. And when she was gone, I did not cut my hair lest it should take her away from me.

My father did not understand why I returned. He couldn't love me more but certainly was not prepared for the demands I would make on his time. Long walk with his friends, temple visits, religious programmes on Sun TV and newspapers that would be read end-to-end painstakingly took up pretty much his whole day. The maid and the cook took care of the house. It is only when I catch him staring intently at my mother's photograph, the only picture frame on his bedside table, that I realize what it means to be married for 35 years. Every evening he would place fresh jasmine flowers near her photo. The scent of the only woman he had loved in his life.

***

And yet here I am. The prodigal daughter who had fallen in love twice. My first love is my husband. Varun and I meet just twice before marriage (not counting two phone calls per day) but, we know. The search has ended. We are "compatible". He has lived in the US since he was a teenager. Returned to India with his parents, for good. Intelligent and capable of making me laugh. I ask for no more. He proposes, as he is expected to. And I say yes. That night, I happily think of our future. But happiness is a bit weird, you know? It is perfectly complacent. And you wonder why you searched for so long. And then another kind of happiness blurs it. You can no longer view the initial happiness for what it is. Tainted. That's what it is. Tainted by your new-found muse. And somehow one diminishes the other. The perfect bliss I experienced earlier about Varun? Not entirely gone now. Just a bit misty, like hearing static in the radio during your favourite song. Like the India of my past. I remember how it had felt but cannot feel it in its entirety now.

The object of my affectionate remembrance is a nondescript train journey. Only that it turned out to be special for me. I was heading to Bangalore from Madras to meet Varun's grandparents and seek their blessings for our marriage. They could not travel to Madras with Varun and his parents. Obviously staying with Varun's family was a big no-no. My father discovers a distant aunt living in Jayanagar and arrangements are made for me to spend the weekend with her. Wanting to indulge my nostalgia, I decided to travel by train. After all, isn't a train journey how you get to know the real country?

***

S6 - 45 is my compartment number. I don't mind being directed into the compartment by the movement of the crowd. It's funny how small nuisances take the guise of trivial romanticisms. And so I enter my compartment sweating profusely. My white cotton salwar kameez and red bandini dupatta cling to me. I feel I can stick quite securely to any surface, no seat belts needed here! Loaded with these crazy thoughts and thoughts of Varun, I settle down in one of the window seats. The light breeze caressing my hair, that I had picturized in my head, seems a distant reality. I start fanning myself with an old Ananda Vikatan issue. It was lying around unnoticed in the house. I can barely read Tamil, ezhuthu-kooti-padikardu as we say in Tamil. But I intend to take classes to improve that situation.


Muddled, you think? That's what living in another country does to you.

The compartment fills up soon, an aged couple, a family with two - I am temped to say unruly - kids. Just as the final whistle is about to be blown, a young man climbs into the moving train. I detest the young guys who hang out of the bus endangering their lives and others. Guys rushing into moving trains fall in the same category for me. I look with distaste as he sits down panting, right next to me. But now, the train has started moving and there is indeed a breeze. I look outside and am soon distracted by the moving trees, fields and huts. I know now what I missed back then. This contact with nature. Something as primitive as a breeze. We never opened our windows in my apartment in the US - in winter it was too cold and in summer too many bugs came flying in.

Within an hour, the kids are asking for chocolate, the father, a portly middle-aged, tired man is snoring and his wife seems also in a daze as she mechanically retrieves a five-star bar from her handbag. The kids are satisfied, for the moment at least. The old couple discuss their new daughter-in-law. I gather that they have a son who after marriage has shifted to Bangalore. They are on their way to meet their son and daughter-in-law.

"Sanjay would have never opted to move to Bangalore on his own..."

"Maybe his new job pays him better, we don't know Padma...", the thatha reasons in a feeble voice.

"Why should he suddenly move only three months after his marriage? I am sure it is that girl..."

And they discuss, uninhibited, the details of their personal lives. Laid out for all of us to hear. Perhaps, I missed this too.


Soon, it is time for lunch. I take an apple out of my basket. That is when he acknowledges my presence. The apple I hold in my hand interests him more than the person holding it. He looks at it with the same condescending look that I wear on my face. As if to say, "Oh these snobs! Regular Indian food won't work for them, only fruits for travel!" He then proceeds to take out a neatly wrapped package. He opens it deliberately and the breeze brings the smell of spicy puliyodarai to me. Suddenly, the puliyodarai looks much more appetizing than the apple I hold in my hand and I have an urge to taste it. I don't of course, but embarrassingly, my stomach growls in resentment.

I bite into my apple determined to like it as he proceeds to open yet another package. Golden, fried potatoes. My mouth actually begins to water and I pull out my bisleri bottle. Cold water to drive away insane hunger pangs.

"Urulakazhangu. Enga amma pannadhu", he introduces the vegetable to me politely and I wonder if I had stared too much. And much more to my surprise, I hear myself say, "Romba tastya iruku pakka. Enakke saapadanum pola iruku."

Sheesh. Did I actually say that I wanted to eat this man's lunch?

He grins and hands the curry to me and I eat greedily. Obviously, this is a dream. So, I don't really care what I say or do. But, the urulakazhangu tastes too good to be a figment of my imagination.

Not to be outdone, I dig into my basket and hand him my cookies. I was determined not to lose the few culinary skills I had picked up as a student in America.

He doesn't seem to like them much and one of the kids actually throws the cookie I give him, right out the window. With that lunch is over. The humid afternoon and the food I ate make the letters in my Ananda Vikatan crawl away from my line of vision. Just as I am about to settle down to a sweet afternoon nap, he asks,

"Going to Bangalore for a vacation?"

He has a sing-song English accent typical of Indian languages.

"I am going to meet my fiancé."

Lest he should get any ideas.

"Congratulations. I am also going to meet my girl-friend's parents and ask for her hand in marriage."

I smile and nod and he nods back the Indian way, left to right and back in an arc. Reminds me of my advisor at the University, "This is a yes!" nodding up and down vigorously; "And this is a no!", shaking his head side to side; "I don't understand this!" and now he moves his head in a left-right arc.

He takes out his tattered wallet and extracts a photo from it delicately. "This is Lakshmi", he says proudly.

I study the face of the young girl in the photo - long, well-oiled hair separated in two plats, a big red bindi and a vibhuthi mark on her forehead, a shiny nose-ring that catches the studio lights, dark complexioned, a serene smile.

“The dhavani-pavadai”, he adds pointing to her half-saree, “was my birthday gift to her.”

Again the proud smile. I look at the photo again and am surprised that the loud red and yellow half-saree looks so perfect on her. I wouldn’t dream of wearing it.

Now, I am drawn to the story too. That's what is different about this country. People eager to share their stories and people eager to listen to those stories. No matter how personal or delicate.

“So, where did you guys meet? Tell me about your love story.”

The train has lulled everyone else to sleep. But we stay awake, the story-teller and his sole audience, unaware of the story that we will soon experience ourselves.

He narrates his love story – college-mates, she is one year his junior and he makes her cry her first day to College. Just your typical ragging questions but she starts crying and so he takes her to the college canteen to console her with a treat. She is embarrassed and doesn’t talk much, quietly sipping her mango milkshake. He predictably falls for the shy, pretty heroine and the rest as they say is history. They graduate with a B.Sc in Computer Science, she stays home to help her mother take care of her two younger siblings and he accepts an offer in a start-up company in Bangalore. His parents have no objections for the marriage and he doesn’t anticipate any from her parents. He is on his way to talk to Lakshmi’s parents and decide on an auspicious date for the engagement.

Nothing extraordinary about the story but I do like his lively story-telling technique. He speaks in Tamil and the familiar, lilting sounds of my mother tongue enamor me more than the story they tell.

He tells me he writes poems in Tamil. But he refuses to recite any to me. They are for Lakshmi alone.

“No, you must recite a poem, I love poetry! I promise I won’t laugh.”

So, he furrows his brows in concentration and closes his eyes. I lean closer, for his words come out a whisper. I watch his moving lips as they enunciate words I had learned as a kid. I think of my mother. She used to help me with my Tamil homework. I swallow the dulling pain in my throat and listen again.

It’s a poem filled with sadness. A young bride who loses her husband soon after marriage. He paints a poignant picture. A beautiful widow imprisoned by her love; her sorrow so great, tears fail to do them justice. And so she lives day and night losing herself in his memory. He ends by asking, “Had her love not been so great, would she have lived a better life?”

And he opens his eyes. I don’t realize that I am crying until his expression changes. I draw away from him and look outside the window. A tea shop owner makes frothy coffee – the kind I don’t like – he lifts one tumbler filled with steaming coffee as high as his hands stretch and pours it into another tumbler on the table, not a drop goes amiss.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“That’s ok. I just miss my mother. Nothing to do with your poem”, I snap back at him not knowing why.

His face falls and he doesn’t talk to me after that. We are about a half-hour away from Bangalore. I am restless, I dig up my ipod from my handbag and turn the volume all the way up. But, I don’t listen to the songs, I keep skipping them every few minutes.

Varun. I want to think about Varun. I want to feel the excitement I felt until a few days back. Will we settle down in Bangalore? What about my father? Maybe I can convince him to shift to Bangalore. Fat chance of that happening. Maybe I can sign up for an art class and weekends, we can eat out! Hmm…what does Varun do in his free time? Does he write poems too?

And then suddenly I am thinking not of my husband waiting for me at the Bangalore railway station but of the man sitting next to me reading a heavy Tamil novel, P-a-r-t-h-i-b-a-n K-a-n-a-v-u, I read the name of the book with difficult, as unobtrusively as possible. I want to talk to him, ask him about his dreams, about his poems…so much to know about him and I have no time left…

I look at him and am about to ask him a question. He is engrossed in his book. The two kids are now awake and are chasing each other. Their father still asleep, their mother is now packing their belongings, “Finally over”, her expression seems to say. The old couple look out the window. And if you asked me even the color of the patti’s handbag, I would be able to tell you. Because this scene is frozen in my head. I can’t change it, I can’t get it out, only look at it again and again, to think of uncertainties, happiness and fate.

Because at that instant, our train derailed.

All I heard was a loud screech. And there was chaos all around. The kids wept, suitcases fell over and I heard myself scream. Something heavy hit my head and a sharp pain seared through my head. I began to fall. And it was then that he grabbed my hand. An instant before my eyes closed from consciousness, he pulled me towards him, towards safety. I held him as tightly as I could before I lost consciousness.

***

Varun tells me it was not as bad as I had imagined. It was a small accident, several people had minor injuries, nothing fatal. News spreads fast in India. Varun tells me he reached the accident scene within 20 minutes. The old couple in my compartment were shaken but safe. The husband and wife stood at a nearby shop making a phone call. The kids were crying but they would soon forget. And me? And him?

Varun tells me, “There was this chap holding on to you. Left before I could ask him if he needed help. He said the bruise on your forehead shouldn’t last for long.”

Sometimes I wish it had. Something to remember him by. It’s only when I see my sketch one Sunday morning that I realize that I don’t even know his name.

***

***Excerpt***