As a secret admirer...

A Train Journey from Coimbatore to Bangalore...

There must be few faces in everyone’s life one can never forget. After all they may be a part of your life for not more than five minutes but the effect they triggered on your mind will last for a lifetime .

Two years back, one cold Sunday night I was getting myself ready to board Coimbatore Express at Tirupur Railway station with my brother. After spending a cozy weekend with family , I’m all set to leave for work at Bangalore.For those who spend most of their time away from home, it feels so blissful while travelling towards home from any part of the world but the journey from home to school\work there is always a mild heartache no matter how pleasurable mode of transport one adopts!

I confidently followed my brother who was walking towards the allotted berth.  My eyes were rather busy gazing at the passengers in each compartment to make sure I don’t miss any known faces  in the train because meeting them can potentially mitigate the mild heartache I had which I mentioned earlier. Finally I spotted something that was unexpected. A Man who must be in his 30’s who was sitting in the side lower berth threw a mellow smile at me and my brother, as an acknowledgement for sharing the same compartment.

After settling  all the luggage, I occupied the lower berth and my brother gave me the blanket, shut the window and climbed up. Like everyone around, if you have nothing to do during a long journey, you start observing the person beside you, So did I.This Man who was so relaxed in pose, resting one of his elbows over his wife’s knee and he was reading a magazine. He did resemble Srinivas, Playback Singer in side angle (c’mon he was in side lower..that’s the only angle I had ). His wife was fast asleep and was hiding herself completely underneath the warm blanket. I compelled myself to close my eyes  and get some sleep but I could not. I realized the lights were on and this Man was reading. Soon he realized that the light was disturbing fellow passengers and he was about to sleep too. As it was cold and breezy, the blanket moved away uncovering his wife’s feet. I never thought he would have observed it and it was surprising for me to look at him covering his wife’s feet, pulling the blanket and stuffed a little under her feet to make sure it doesn’t move away again. He climbed his upper berth and just after few seconds he climbed down, shut the window, and climbed up again peacefully.

This whole scene seriously took less than five minutes and for almost everyone this entire narration might have appeared to be “a man climbed up and then came down to shut the window and climbed up again”, as simple as that! The whole intent of this note is to portray the thoughtfulness of the husband towards his wife.The person showed a lot of care which his wife is completely unaware of and she will never know what happened last night. I was happy to witness it that there still exists unintentional love. the love that doesn’t need to be acknowledged even by the receiver but still flows at its end for nothing but for love’s sake.

Mild heartache was no more next morning. The train reached K.R puram, our destination. I saw these couple walking across the platform with their fingers twined. I thought it was a pleasant scene to set off a morning.It’s been two years now and I have met lot of people who keep their spouse’s picture as their mobile wall paper, wife\family photo in their wallet and also I do hear people leaving office to take care of their sick wife\husband (hope it’s true) and wish they really love one another. It’s time to reconsider my stereotypical thought as - FEW couples do have a happy (or at least not so horrible) life after marriage!!!