Seems like it has become a ritual of sorts for me to not
have a date or to be single for Valentines Day. The conformist in me smiled
knowingly. I was trying to sit quietly and mind my own business in my not so
serene bogie in Bhubaneshwar express. I was going to visit my grandmother who
has fallen off her wheel chair. Little did I know there is one love story about
to happen right in front of my eyes!
A strikingly long nose complimented by a spark in the eyes,
eyebrows arched like the curvature of a washbasin and a small mouth to finish
the face. She walks in and places on my side a suitcase, which could have been
my long lost twin brother in weight and signals to her mom to sit next to me.
Damn! The older lady’s fashion sense apes the style employed by a rabid dog bitten
by Manish Malhotra – formal work shoes on a lime green and blue salwar kameez.
For a second I envisioned I got up and screamed “my eyes, my eyes!”
I try to channelize my thoughts on the younger one, who
knows I might get lucky this Valentines. The skeptic in me knows somewhere
cupid with his stinking bare ass is about to have a cruel laugh. She turned to
me in a few seconds and flashed a smile that sent jitters down my spine. Teeth
the size of hand cut milestones and it baffled me how such a cute mouth can
house worlds largest calcium kiln. I hear cupid’s roaring laughter.
The young man boarded the train just like everyone else
other than me. I was limping thanks to Harper (my new canine friend) and my
never improving running stance. The way my ankle was swollen would easily have
put a plum on full bloom to shame. He walks in and flashes that smile
protagonists from C grade movies usually employ under the pretext of making the
masses swoon. The effect here was just akin since the dude, I never asked him
his name – hence ‘the dude’ I am sure was not appraised he has a face which
people don’t think twice to forget. He has this smug expression on his face, a
sense of achievement if I may - plastered on his face which no one cared to
enquire about.
The dude’s eyes fall on the damsel. Not sure if
circumstances are fond of clichés or even god watches Bollywood movies, the
lady needed to stow the oober heavy suitcase under the seat and was unable to.
Our hero jumps in (well jump is an understatement) ahead of 5 men already close
by and assists her. A muted thank you and he brings the smug expression back.
Who ever told him the expression is cool should be minced and then grilled with
skewers and be put on a barbeque. As his luck would have it, her mother wants
to lie down after the humongous meal she consumed. I still am amazed from where
she conjured out the meal. “Auntyji! Madam Ji will sit here on this seat you
lie down there,” says the dude offering a fellow passenger’s seat much to the
passenger’s dismay. Reluctantly making an uncomfortable face our damsel obliges
to sit next to the dude. I could never have guessed what transpired after this…
My intermittent slumber was disturbed by “tum paas aaye….”
Yet another clichéd song from a senseless bollywood movie. I just wanted to
wring the dude’s neck so that he would stop singing but was positively aghast
when I found out it was the girl singing. My endurance levels were put to test
for almost an hour. The singing stopped only to be replaced by giggles. They
were watching something on her cell phone together sharing the earphones. (Yeah
yeah – romantic and all that…). They were watching some comedy track but my mind
kept telling me it was porn. No matter how interesting the thought was I just
couldn’t visualize the kind of porn two strangers of opposite sex could watch.
(Note to self: explore what it could be in future). Distance between them
started to depreciate progressively. The dude, I imagine then secretly prays
for someone else to join the already deficient space and the cliché favoring
god obliges. I had to imagine they have awfully pungent breaths and they are
now so close they could smell each other, not so surprisingly it doesn’t bother
them. She now opens a book written by a pretentious author whom India learnt to
adore and tries to read. The dude snatches the book away saying, “If she starts
reading he is going to be bored” to which she actually blushes. My cranium
breaks releasing my brain, which jumps off into the washbasin and tries to take
a wash, to clear itself.
Begin subsequent charade, she feeds him something she made
with her own hands (well I use my legs and some under exposed parts of my body
to cook). He starts a foodgasm of the worst kind. Repulsive me had to hold on
to my bags so that I wouldn’t retch the sticky crap the railways caterer called
dal rice. I made a sparkling discovery here about the girl that she is a royal.
She is the queen of dumbfucks. Even a dumbfuck can understand when they are
being made fun of, but not our queen. My endurance levels have gone from okay
to impressive by the end of this. Now the dude replicates the titanic scene at
the door.
The air was latent with the gentle smell of urine emanating
from the toilet but they were at it unhindered. Kudos to their patience and
even while it is degenerating to use the word cliché I am forced since there is
no other word to describe this farce. A wisp of hair falls on here forehead
covering her eyes and the dude pushes it away with his own hands. Thus started
her first orgasm and back comes his smug face. The remainder of journey goes
with similar occurrences and since you have come this far I am not going to
bother you with the details and in case you are wondering about her mother, she
was right there all this while. A royal can only give birth to another royal,
so naturally her mother is also a royal, the royal queen of oblivion. She chats
away to glory.
Post dinner he says hi. Not sure if that was intended to me,
I ask him if he is trying to talk to me. He comes up to me and inquires whether
I would be sleeping early, and without waiting for a response he declares he
would join me on my berth for sometime. There was finality in his tone and I
just had to acquiesce with his request knowing clearly what his intentions
were. It’s Valentines Day and I cannot say no to a couple in the making. How
many times do I get this opportunity to play cupid. Wait! Don’t answer that
question =D
Sitting right next to me using my camera bag as his anchor
the dude starts ranting about politics and clearly our dame is impressed. They
now start making faces at each other and after 2minutes of that the dude looks
at me and the smug face clearly says, “I have myself a hottie”. Puke
Zzzzzzz goes the mother and the girl blushes, am I missing
something here I ask my self. The dude then puts one leg on the middle berth,
anchors the other on the my berth, one hand holding the chain that supports the
berth the girl is on the other hand holding the rattling fan for grip. A new
position in Kamasutra I take a note ;) he then does a couple of pelvic thrusts
(yeah I was clueless too) and lunges to the girl’s side. Who said Spiderman is
just fiction. They are together again YAYYYY
I just pray to god to grant me sleep and he obliges but with
a cunning smile. Clueless me fell asleep. When asking something from god, they
say you have to be so very specific. He is a stickler to details and I missed
one of those important ones. I just asked him for sleep but not a sound one. I
hear a silent moan, I took a good measure of painkillers for my torn ligament
in my ankle and I thought I was imagining things. But there it was again, clear
and distinct – I turned my head, how I wish I haven’t…
The duo tied an ultra thin chunni around the berth and was
going at it moderately fast; I know you all kinda know how it goes, so let me
not paint a picture here. Many of you can vouch for me when I say I seldom get
scandalized, I proudly count the moments on my fingers, and this is one of
those. Another half-hour passes before the lady right below them kinda wakes up
which is when the dude ‘finishes’. I should be honest and be a tad impressed
with him here. Half hour in a train compartment – a 6”X2” (similar to the pit
where they bury you). They then get dressed and I couldn’t control myself and
blurt out – why can't you use the toilet to which the girl complains with a
sick look on her face “it stinks…” I faint.
I have a feeling they haven’t exchanged their numbers and to
be honest I was a little anxious. Eventually the station arrives and I limp to
the platform, curiosity gets the better of me. I stand and stare and the duo.
Only the girl is off the train with her mother trailing and is searching for someone
and no prizes for who the person is. The dude gets off and walks in the
opposite direction for a few feet. Hey sweetie” I hear a gruff voice to which
the girl blushes, jumps up and with a mischievous smile hugs a tall burly man.
She signals the dude to come.
Hey this is my husband. This is ‘the dude’; he helped me and
ma a lot with your stupid suitcase during the journey.” The dude shakes hands
with the man and then pulls a lady forward, asks her to bow to the damsel’s
mother’s feet, “this is my wife maaji, she is in the ladies compartment, and I
called her saying she could use your berth, is that ok?”
I walk away with Sinatra's My funny valentine ringing in my ears
I am not going to nag and say, what is love why are things going this way yaada yaada yaada
Went to the beach to cool my brain down and met Devudamma.
She was born in the Hizra colony in Visakhapatnam and was raped as a child by "uncles" with no names. By the time she realized what was going on, she was smack in the middle of the prostitution racket. She was a prostitute for 18 years before she got bored. Devudamma (meaning mother of God) identifies herself as a female, likes to apply make up and loves to go to the beauty parlors. She likes to spend her evenings sitting on the shore watching the waves and begging for money. Says the beach gives her peace.
Then she pouts and asks me how she looks.....I need not have to think twice. She is really gorgeous. "Striking is the word" I told her and then explained her what it meant.
She asked me to take a picture of her saying she would show me what striking means.
This old couple ( they did mention their names,
but I am not posting them because there are many like these who have been
together for ages and let this be a tribute to them) have been together for 40
years. They met at a cousins wedding, the man fell for the woman and proposed
the next day. She asked him to talk to her parents silently wishing her parents
to say yes. They have been together ever since. The visit the beach every
evening unless they are visiting their grandchildren. The woman maintains a distance
from the man saying, she is too old fashioned to walk hand in hand or right
next to him and is amazed how the present generation does that with no qualms.
They are related, she is his father’s sister’s daughter. They
played together as kids and when she confessed her feelings to him, he
reciprocated. They have been together as a couple for almost 9 years now and
they seldom get a chance to come to the beach since they are still trying to
shape their careers. She confessed to me as we spoke, she dreads the beach. She
sees it as a bad omen since every time they come there; they end up having a
fight and then not talk for a week. She misses him dearly and vice versa. When I
probed into the issue she mentions how the guy likes to fondle her womanhood at
the beach. She has no issues when they are alone but ….
She hopes he realizes how uncomfortable that
makes her and asked me if I could talk to him. I do have a chat and this is
what happened
Well I think I did invade the privacy of these two men but
at that moment I did not care. I was happy they were being themselves in the open.
These newly weds wanted to do something different for valentines day. So they came to the beach and started collecting shells. Theirs was an arranged marriage and they chorused this would help them to get to know each other well.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
