PURSUIT

Written by Nanda Nair A

In the era of earphones, I decided to ditch them.

“Hot tea… hot tea…” the chaiwallahs are mesmerizing. Those two words were enough to draw my attention.

Being from a lower-middle-class family, I was obliged to travel in third class. Discrimination isn’t meant to be in railways, but money has given way to it here.

I boarded the train with just one bag. Stuffed the entire wardrobe there. Being a messy girl of 21, cleanliness wasn’t an option for me, or so was it in my case.

A young boy of about 25 came in to sit opposite me. My flirt mode switched on.

“Don’t be a pervert, leave him alone.” I heard my inner self telling me.

After about 15 minutes, the “civilized” part of his cerebellum gave up and he uttered the first words,

“Hi! Where are you from?”

“Um… Hi! I am from Mahabalipuram. Where are you from?”

“Chennai.”

“Oh! My ancestors are from there….”

“Great to know that. So where to?”

“Thirichirapalli”

“Work?”

“Nope. I am eloping. My boyfriend’s waiting for me there.”

Uncanny silence crept in.

“Oh! I shouldn’t have revealed so much.”

“Nah. that’s fine. I was just taken aback.”

“Yeah, let that sink in.”

And it drowned.

“So the family didn’t approve of your man?”

“Nope. he is from a different religion. Musalmaan hai woh.”

“Heterogeneity will never be approved. The hierarchy that we find in our society now is because of heterogeneity: the differences caused by base pairs in our DNAs. Little did we know those molecules are the reason behind almost all wars on earth.”

The way he juggled between social science and biology mesmerized me.

“How true! It’s the differences that we cannot approve of. I admire how you play with words. The systematic arrangement in the words spoken by you is honestly amazing.”

“Ah! Thank you! Nice talking to you. You are buzzworthy!”

“For that, I haven’t said anything extraordinary.”

“Ha! My definition of interesting is different. A person who listens dearly is as interesting as a person who utters profound matters, for what value does the latter possess if there’s no listener?”

“Yeah, but how is a listener interesting though? I can’t bend myself around it.”

“The actuality that the listener is capable of processing the words coming out of a person with complete certainty for an elaborate amount of time displays that individual’s cerebral capacity. Nothing is more interesting in a person than their brilliance.”

Wasn’t this entire conversation supposed to be flirtatious?

I glared into his eyes. He held so many secrets. He has a past. He possesses something so divine that I cannot unlock. Also, I cannot unlock someone I just met on a train.

“Never have I ever thought of this.”

“Well, there lies our differences.”

I giggled.

“Like the three classes of a train, we too are divided, aren’t we, young man?”

He giggled as well.

Eyes of light brown.

Pale skin.

Clean shaved.

Thick hair.

Tall and sick-looking.

Palms, probably as soft as the pulp of avocado.

“Where will you alight the train?”

“Thanjavur.”

“Oh! Who’s waiting for you there?”

“Most likely death.”

“Uh?”

He nodded. Then he turned his head away from me and stared at voidness.

We didn’t speak afterward.

At around 3 pm, the train halted at Thanjavur.

“Young lady, it’s time for me to go.”

I was still sitting. I decided to get up.

“Oh!”

That’s all I said. A plain “oh”.

“Young lady…. I am sorry I didn’t carry the conversation.”

He unzipped his bag and took out a flower, half-withered.

“Today, before boarding the train, I had promised myself that I would find someone interesting, someone, with whom I can connect, and before getting off the train I would gift this flower. I am happy I found you. I might not walk enough here to cherish everything that has happened to me and I am happy about that as well. Everything that has ever happened to me wasn’t good but this tiny conversation that we previously exchanged is definitely worth cherishing. Thank you! Here’s the flower.”

He unfolded my arms and handed it over to me.

I was flabbergasted.

Never did I meet a man like him.

I didn’t say anything. Not even a thank you. He got off the train. I ran towards the door. I saw him vanishing in the crowd when it occurred to me that I failed to ask his name.

The train began to move, he began to vanish. I screamed at the top of my voice,

“WHAT’S YOUR NAME, BUDDY?!”

Several people turned toward me. Unfortunately, he didn’t hear me. Or maybe he did.

The train gained speed, and so did memories.

A man I knew for about 6 hours was responsible for my tears.