On The Subway (Part 1)

October 12, 2003

“Okay, so the first place we go is…”, he stuttered in the middle of the sentence.

“The Tavern”, she completed the blank, as always.

The name brought a smile to his face. As they climbed their way into open air, the bright sunshine hit them in the eye. He placed his hand on her forehead to shield them from the sun. Apparently, no chivalry was too much chivalry for him.

They began to walk on the kerb. She noticed the troves of men and women walking beside them, past them, with them. She loved New York for this. You never felt alone in this city. A strange pulsating spirit seemed to run through the veins of this city at any given moment. Walking, which she had hated as a chore back home, had come alive as a pleasure in this city of walkers. And walking beside him was a pleasure greater still.

She tightened her grip on his arms as they were about to cross the street. She knew it was not necessary. New York was no Delhi – When the white man on the pedestal lit up, pedestrians could walk with all the élan in the world. And the country’s notoriously large lawsuit claims had infused a perpetual fear of any walking object, in the minds of automobile drivers.

But this gesture was a signal – she needed him, and she wanted him to know it. And he did.

October 12, 2003

“Stand clear of the closing doors, please”, the announcement echoed in his ears as he saw the door-halves approaching each other in perfect unison and meeting with an ever so gentle thud. The train began to move.

As he pressed his face against his palms, he could feel the moisture that had welled up in his eyes. He wiped it with his shirt sleeve and began to look around sheepishly. The compartment was unusually empty for this hour of the day. “Loneliness stalks you everywhere”, he thought to himself.

The sound of sniffles interrupted his train of thought. He lifted his head to decipher the source of the sound. It was originating from a lady at the other end of the compartment. A man seated beside her was mumbling something to himself, apparently in great anger. He strained his ears to listen to what he was saying.

“One man’s agony is another man’s pleasure” – he had learnt one of the fundamental dictums of human psychology, during his graduation class on Human Behavior. The realization that he wasn’t the only soul bereft of joy on this planet was sadistic, but pacifying. The propensity of New Yorkers to wash their dirty linen in public provided ample opportunities for this decadent activity.

“Nothing remains the same. Everything changes. Nothing’s forever”, the words came out intermittently between the sniffles.

“True”, he thought to himself, as he ran his fingers into his pockets and felt the cold metal inside.