She

Her secret smile, meant for me, directed at some other target, reminded me so much of the other smile, her last smile this morning, that I almost fell from the last step of the bus. “Dei, you boy, get in! ” the conducted shouted irrately from the other end of the crowded tube the bus was. My friend flashed me a knowing look as he pulled me in. I grinned back at him soberly as I put my bag on the luggage rack above our heads and got a firm grip of the metal bar that was the only barrier between my stability and gravity taking its course. “Enna da sirippu?” “Onnum illa. Velaiya paru da.” “Aamam. Indha bus-la ninnukittu IBM ku velai pakka poren.” “Dei, you are a genius da. Nee pannalum pannuva.” As I exchanged banter with him, I tried to see where she was. So far, yet so near. She had exchanged the yellow dress I had seen her in this morning for a salwar kameez in very pale shades of blue and white. The yellow had made her look old, mature, beyond her years. Not that she was anything but that. But I can never be sure. At one moment she talks like my grandmother, at others, she is like a small kid, chattering on about everything and anything and nothing. But, the dress. I was talking about the dress. This particular dress, is by far her best. No, the dress is not the best, it looks so good because she wears it. Oh my god, when did I start thinking things like that? Well, it was true at any rate. At least, I think so. I mean, that same dress, worn by any of her friends standing about her, would not look half as good. I surveyed her friends with the eye of the connoiseur. Ah, as usual, she was surrounded by her friends. She was like the moon, supremely radiant, surrounded by the feeble stars. You can see the stars without the moon; but where the moon is, you can always meet the stars as well. Her friends were like the stars; not for a moment did they leave her alone, for me. I tried to catch her eye from where I stood, trying to peek above the heads seperating me from her. She was silent, standing there serenely like a drop of dew on the lotus leaf on a misty morning, like a tear waiting silently for permission to be expressed in the corner of a black eyelid. The bus was crowded, so crowded that it was nothing but a mass of flesh, a tangle of hands and legs and heads, a multicoloured welter of the multitude. And she stood there, silent, sober, with everything, one with the rush, yet somehow above it all. One long slender arm holding on to the rod, another arm falling at her side, holding one corner of her dupatta to keep it from flying in the wind, as the bus moved at 70 kilometres an hour. Kohl framed eyes roved about like those of a doe, occasionally stopping to answer the question of a friend or to catch sight of a distant bird on the horizon, or so I thought. If her lips moved, I thought she was praying, if a smile flashed, I smiled to myself because I thought she was smiling with me in mind. The bus screeched to a halt. There was a scramble for the door as people struggled to retrieve their baggage and moved towards the conductor to purchase last miniute tickets and get back their change. My friend was getting down as well, and we exchanged words of farewell; a weekend is a long time to be separated from one’s friend! I cornered a seat next to a window, and settled down, my bag on my lap. It was about seven at night. My window faced the east, the night wind seemed stronger because of the speed of the bus, and the first stars peeped out overhead. The bus was relatively free now, with only one standing passenger. You may wonder how it was that it was only she who happened to be standing, or how it was that the only empty place on the bus was next to me. Call it fate, call it the fortunate play of God’s dice, call it coincidence, whatever you will. As she looked around, scanning for a place to sit, I managed to catch her eye, and half rose indicating that she could sit on my seat. Considering the modesty of the females of our species, I knew that she would hesitate to sit next to me, even though I knew her, I had known her all my life. It was a long ride home, with but a stop in between; if I gave up my seat for her, I would have to stand all the way on that bucking bus. Strangely, I don’t remember thinking all these things back then. She was standing, I was sitting, she had to sit, even if it meant that I had to stand. She flashed me a half smile of thanks as she walked towards me. I made move to stand up and clear out, but she motioned to me to sit, and took her seat next to mine. I sat back, not entirely surprised. I watched her sit down, pulling the long folds of her voluminous attire close to her, tucking her phone into some recess of her bag. I watched her bring out bottle of water and take a long swig from it, the rim of the bittle not touching her lips. I watched her settle down with her bag, her purse open in one hand. She put back some change and folded a half crushed ticket neatly and put that in as well. She had beautiful hands, long, white, with slender fingers and smooth, long nails. The nails were coloured with some shade of sheen; not pink, not white, but some colour in between. The wrists were bejewelled with a couple of bangles, made of conch and ivory. I saw nothing of her, except for the hands. She herself made no conversation, not even that big baap word of all small talk, ‘thanks.’ Not that I expected to be thanked, but it was just the kind of thing anyone else would have done had they wanted to start talking. There were a hundred clever things I had thought I could say if such a situation ever arose. I laughed at myself. None of them seemed appropriate now. Hell, there was no need for any of all that. The only language I was comfortable conversing with her in, was silence. Nothing more demanded to be asked, nothing was asked to be said. I turned once to look at her face, her round, white, full moon of a face sitting next to me, with an occasional freckle like the spots on the moon, with eyes looking at me, frankly, like moonbeams, with half thoughts hovering in the background like moonshadows. My thoughts were interrupted by the beep from my phone. It was my friend texting me : ‘Annal nokkinar, aval nokkinala?’ I realised I did not have an answer for him. I realised I did not want to answer that question. I realised I did not need to answer him, as the question was not mine. The blackness of the night was closing in on me. The darkness was comforting. Light, there were only two sources: one, from my side, that radiance of the sheen from her nails, that did not come from the reflection of the glow of her face, but from some fountain of life within. The other, from outside the window, as a clear white moon climbed up the sky, taking me with her, filling her with me.The two lights of the moment, the two lights of my life, shared their light with me; and I spoke with my shadows like the lights spoke with me.

-suchitra- 15/02/08

~ by Suchitra on May 18, 2008.