He was restless when she first saw him.
They were traveling from Mumbai to Delhi by a train. Rajdhani Express was waiting for the green signal to begin its journey. The ticket collectors, clad in black coats over white shirts, were exchanging colorful rectangular pieces of paper, for accommodating the waitlist passengers in the last minute. These colorful rectangular papers- the railway ticket- has the picture of a man, in black and white, from decades ago- beloved Father of the nation.
It was all usual, clockwork. But, the clockwork for the boy and girl, sitting on opposite seats facing each other, was disturbed by the events that purportedly usual events.
As the girl continued to observe, the guy was constantly fiddling with his phone, turning it on and off obsessively ever since he boarded the train. Not that she was fond of observing restless people and enjoying their internal commotion, she thought of it as a diversion, for she too, was going through the similar state of mind.
His clothes, she reasoned to herself, were neither very expensive nor cheap. They were bought hurriedly from a shopping mall. The color and style of his clothes were so common; it was hardly a difficult conclusion. Her persistent observation did not reveal anything significant, except that look of his. Though hardly like a Greek God, his face was unusually attractive. Some might even want to take a selfie with him, and she would not mind either. To her, he was a guy in late twenties.
She looked away swiftly as he lifted his head up from the screen. It was now his turn to observe, to find a distraction for himself. She was not a college girl, he realized this almost immediately. She too was not in the best of moods and kept disconnecting incoming calls every other second.
She had an American accent but tinted by the Indian tone. She was wearing a light pink dress and had her hair tied in a ponytail. These were the things that he noticed for the first time. Earlier his eyes were fixed to what he thought was the most attractive thing about her - her long, spotless, legs, that she had at this very moment put one over the other, perhaps, the most visible, sexy thing about her. He did not want to lie to himself about that.
He was secretly peeping towards her. He got caught soon enough.
“Hi”, she said, fixing her eyes on his. If that was aimed at stopping his prying eyes, it had the desired effect.
“Hi”, he responded, looking directly into her eyes. They were as black as her hair and had an almost captivating effect.
“You are a.....” he wanted to engage in a conversation but was ambushed as soon as he began. “You were staring at my leg?” she shot, looking at him without blinking.
“No”, not guilty, he pleaded.
The lie was responded by a raised eyebrow and he succumbed to the gesture.
“Yes”, he confessed finally, trying to avoid her eyes. When he finally looked at her, she was smiling, infinitesimally.
“They are lovely”, he did not want to describe them accurately. Sexy was still a taboo word. “Sheetal”, she lied for no apparent reason.
“Sunit”, he lied too.
“You are an NRI?” he grabbed the opportunity to drive the conversation.
“Yes”, she said.
“Hunting for a groom in India?” he faked curiosity.
“The problem with typical Indian men is that they firmly believe that all Americans are sex freaks or one-night stand”, she said, like a short note for a true or false question.
“The trouble with typical Indian-origin American women is that they believe that a typical Indian man is only interested in sex.”, he responded with a short note of the equal length.
“And, they all want to settle in the US by marrying an NRI”, she completed his note. “May not be true for all Indian men”, he said, as if trying to keep the records straight.
For the next thirty minutes, they discussed the merits and demerits of an American bride and an Indian groom. The courtroom-like discussion was interrupted when a coach waiter came to deliver evening snacks.
“Alright, not all Indian men are alike, and may be interested in one-night stands too”, she said, trying to end the discussion. Though the conclusion was obvious, within herself she was partly satisfied that her internal chaos had disappeared, almost.
“Not all Indian-American women think badly about Indian men, and not all of them are interested in one night stands”, he erased her full stop and put his own.
If either of them were interested in a one-night stand, it did not materialize that night. Both slept early and did not engage in any conversation in the morning.
“What are you up to in Delhi? Office work, I guess?”, she finally broke the silence as she did the previous evening.
“Yeah, a half day’s work”, he lied again and asked about her day’s work. “Yes. Same. Office work”, it was her turn to lie.
“Let’s meet in the evening”, he proposed a date. He kept looking at her eyes, hoping to predict an answer before it was delivered.
“Oh sure, that would be nice”, the answer came before he could finish his own analysis.
They departed after exchanging their phone numbers and decided to meet at an expensive restaurant near Delhi International airport. He was not sure if he were going to meet her that evening. .He had nothing else to do in Delhi anyway and spent the day roaming from one end of the city to another in the metro before reaching the decided venue. He was 15 minutes early, and to his surprise, she was waiting there too, toying with her cellphone. They went straight to the restaurant inquiring about each other’s return journey as they walked past the main lobby.
“What do you drink?”, she asked him browsing through the bar menu.
“Is beer fine?”, she posed another question as he did not answer the first one.
“Yes, sure, you drink beer?” he replied without looking at the menu. It would not have mattered anyway, he had never had alcohol. She ordered a beer and went ahead to order dinner without consulting him.
Drinks followed a usual account of their day’s work. Both bluffed each other vividly.
“You want to see my legs?”, she interjected abruptly and placed her hands over his. He was holding his first glass of beer, still half-full. He was contemplating an answer and before he could put it to across the table, she spoke again.
“Then don’t utter a word for the next hour”, she commanded without bothering for an answer from him. She took the delay in his response as an affirmation.
Both of them checked into a hotel, and neither said anything for the next one hour, or even at night, not till the next morning. Neither of them slept that night in the room. Both were wrestling with their mental restlessness after a brief period of tranquility.
The silence was finally broken by formal morning greetings.
“I am getting married next month”, she spoke in a tone that signified that she was both sleepy and sad. “I know I should have mentioned last evening, but I got carried away”, she continued as no response came from him.
“To tell you the truth, I ran away from home to escape the pressure from my parents for an early marriage. But, after meeting you, I thought I was wrong about marrying an unknown Indian man. It may not be as hopeless as I initially thought.”, she continued uninterrupted.
He did not want to interrupt either like he did not interrupt her last night. Besides, his thoughts were in turmoil about the making and unmaking of short-lived attachments.
She continued for some time to which he hardly paid any attention. Finally, after a while, he decided to speak.
“You carry on, I have to buy my return ticket for Mumbai”, he told her as a matter of fact.
“l too have to buy a return ticket”, she replied, realizing that both of them lied to each other about next day’s flight.
As they were walking towards the booking counter, she continued to talk about the events that led to her escape from home.
“I too shunned nagging parents forcing me to marry”, he could not finish the sentence though it was already there in his mind since a long time. He looked at his companion, straight into her eyes, and asked:
“What name did you say?” “Whose name?” she was puzzled. “Yours”, he was getting impatient.
“Sheetal?” it was his turn now to raise an eyebrow.
“No, actually it is Sunita”, she revealed her real name for the first time to him. He was staring with interrogating eyes as she spoke. She observed that. It took Sunita less than an entire moment to realise that What if...
“Are you Samir?” she screamed.
Samir did not answer. None was expected. What followed was a resonance of smiles, of two young people in love. They could not fathom if, they were running away from each other or towards each other, since yesterday. They decided to inform their parents, separately, that they are ready to marry the person of their choice, and returning back to homes. The flight took off from Delhi and along with it the dreams of the couple who met just two days ago. They wanted to surprise them, by telling them in person, about the serendipity.
Little did they know that there was another surprise waiting for them at the airport. Sunita went ahead to the exit, Samir wanted to use the washroom.
“Beta, we regret forcing you to marry the person you did not want to”, Sunita’s father was speaking to her in a candid manner.
“We have selected another guy, who is an NRI too”, her father said, proudly pointing to a guy standing next to him.
As he was speaking, Samir joined them and was immediately recognized by her father. “What is he doing here, Sunita?” asked her bewildered father.
Sunita turned to Samir and held his right hand tightly.
“You want to watch my legs as I run a hundred-meter sprint? You want to change the one-night stand into something more?” Sunita said looking at Samir, to the utter astonishment of others standing there!
“Then, let’s run again, this time together”, Sunita responded without waiting for an answer from anyone.
Samir did not want to argue with her this time.
