Her Smile

My life has revolved around her smile.

That sounds false but grand, quite like a smart-ass opening line of a story and so obviously fictitious. Let it be so.

That life started in the late eighties. The daily commute by train to work in the city used to take a few hours then. I can’t remember if it was a hot or rainy day but I know that I was sitting at the window, as usual, sleeping or lazily staring out at the countryside. I could list the stations, even those where the express do not stop, the time between stations, the crossings and the trains that went by, the houses that would show first sign of life as I pass by and those that would be lit up on my way back. I rarely talked to the other passengers and most often, paid no attention to those who sat nearby. But I did notice on that day.

At the first stop after mine, she entered and sat next to me. I gave her a casual glance. She was a young mother, at least five or six years younger than me, with a baby few months old. She kept the baby bag and her handbag, between us, on the seat. I resumed my purposeless stare out of the window. But that day, probably because I had glanced at her, I broke my routine and looked at the others too.

On the opposite berth, facing me, there was a lady at the window and her husband sat next to her. The lady read a book studiously, pointedly ignoring the young mother and the baby. She must have thought that the young mother would cling on for help if she paid the slightest attention. While the lady was awake and reading, her husband read a book and frequently went near the compartment door for a smoke. When his wife was dozing, I saw the husband looking at the young mother. Once or twice, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his fingers close to the young woman’s legs, his smoky breath reaching us on the other berth. He saw me observing him and then stopped leaning forward. Two college-boys sat next to that man. They kept chattering to a set of college-girls across the aisle.

On our berth, it was me at the window, this young mother and her bags next and then a man at the indeterminate crossover between middle-age and old-age. I heard him talking to the young mother, calling her ‘Moley’ (daughter) quite often, asking the usual details about home, her husband and so on. I hardly heard her replies or maybe, she evaded. Once when I turned to that side, I saw him caress the baby’s cheeks with his gnarled fingers, making some gargling sound for the sake of the baby, and his wrinkled hand slid slowly to the mother’s hands that held the baby. He saw me looking at him, at his disgusting drooling lips. He nearly winked at me. I gave him a cold stare that seemed to do the trick. He moved away and tried to converse with the college-kids.

After that, I returned to my pointless stare out of the window. I did not even turn my head towards the young mother when she shifted her bags to the space between her and the geriatric. Once or twice, when she had to feed the baby, I could hear move around on the seat such that she was seated cross-legged, facing the window and me, her knees near my right thigh and hip, a shawl or her dupatta covering her partly from the view of the opposite berth. I could hear the rustling of her clothes, the shifting and opening of her top and bra, the baby suckling at the right breast and then being shifted to the left. In those moments, I sat with my right leg crossed over the left knee, my right hand on the right knee, providing an ineffective shield, staring outside all the time. I must have looked like a sentry guard, as comical as those stony-eyed impassive guards at historical monuments. All I needed was a big tall hat and some funny uniform.

She got off at a station before mine. I saw her struggling to get out of the compartment with her bags and the baby. I looked at her only when she stepped out onto the platform. I saw her turn her head to the left and then to the right, probably searching for the father of her child or husband or porter. She was still waiting there when the train started to move. When my seat passed her, she looked at me and smiled. The train left the station before I could smile back at her.

For months after that, that smile kept haunting me. I knew that I was too old for infatuations but still too young not to be haunted by such. It might sound vacuous or presumptuous if I say now that I knew then that the smile would not just go away like that.

Nearly six months after that journey, on a busy recruitment day for clerical staff, I saw her again. She was a nervous candidate, too nervous for a smile, even looking quite haggard and troubled. During the interview, she showed herself to be the most eager candidate though not really the most capable. I threw my weight in the selection process and she got one of the available posts. Since she was not assigned to my department, our paths hardly crossed. On her kid’s second birthday, she distributed ladoo in office. When I took the offered sweet, I must have thanked her. She smiled at me, I remember. We did see each other in office, of course; even talked casually during office get-togethers or outings; and once, during the Monsoon, I had given lift in my office car to a group of office colleagues including her. But we never talked to each other, one-to-one, till the kid was about three or four. She requested me for help in getting her son admission to a good boys’ school. By chance, I could help her because the Rector there and I were well-acquainted with each other since my school days.

The next meeting I can remember is when she asked me if I could help her son with Math. He was failing in the subject, she said. I think I laughed at her request or maybe I didn’t.  I asked her to bring her son to the office on a Saturday, when we have half-day. I talked to the boy. It was not difficult to see that he had little interest in Math and also, had a bad set of teachers in that subject. But I sensed a more deep-rooted problem. The boy must have been entering his teens and it could have been growing up pains or a lack of authority and supervision at home. I also sensed that his mother was doing all that she could. I could offer little other than the name of a tuition teacher. I told her that my nephew found that teacher useful. She thanked me for talking to the boy. I do not know if the boy went for tuition or if he ever improved in Math.

Again, a few years went by before we had another such meeting. That time, the situation was quite grave. Her son, then in Plus 2 and in his late teens, and a group of friends had assaulted another student over some girl or some other silly issue. His mother made an appointment to see me. I met her during the lunch-hour. She told me that her son was facing expulsion from school. I felt like telling her that she should take such stuff to her husband, the boy’s father. From me, that would have seemed petulant and definitely quite inappropriate. Instead, I promised her that I would look into the matter, if I could. I remember talking to my old acquaintance, the Rector. I met the boy in the priest’s office. I do not know why I exploded. If I could have thrashed the boy, I would have. But I gave a verbal thrashing that surprised the boy and maybe even the priest. In brief, I told the boy to get his act together, to stop troubling his mother and to start caring for her instead. The priest reluctantly allowed the boy to continue with his studies in that school. Some years later, the priest told me that the boy had finally turned out well. The priest and I knew that it had nothing to do with me or my outburst that day. Good old time and self-interest must have changed the boy.

Three weeks back, the mother and I met once again. She came to my office to invite me for her son’s wedding. In our society, wedding invitations are considered seriously only if the parents together invite the guest. According to custom, the father should invite the men and the mother should invite the ladies. For a day or two, I wondered if I should go but then curiosity along with a sense of duty made me go for the wedding.

The wedding was quite grand and it seemed as if the boy had ‘caught’ a rich bride. There were at least fifteen hundred guests in that exclusive Hall. I was not the only guest who was not received by the hosts. Since that is common here, nobody felt slighted, I assumed. Most often, the parents of the bride and groom feel that their hospitality can end with the wedding invitation. During the wedding ceremony, the hosts were busy getting photographed with important guests and it was up to the guests to find their way around.

I made my way through the crowd to wish the boy and his bride. I don’t think he recognized me. His mother was not around then to remind him. During the ceremony, I had seen her on the stage standing next to a man who seemed to officiate as the father of the boy. The mother had maintained a low profile during the ceremony while that man and others hogged the limelight.

I thought of skipping the meal but I was dragged along by the rush of the crowd. I hurried through the meal. From the dining hall, I rushed to the car park and was on my way out when I saw the mother. She was standing outside, looking around, searching amongst the guests. She saw me and smiled. My car had already exited the premises before I could smile back at her.