The Toothless Smile

I dashed to catch the 14:43 fast local to Dadar. The next one was scheduled only after fifteen minutes. Not that a pretty one was waiting for me or I had anything specific to achieve, still I didn’t want to miss the 'fast local with empty seats'. 

‘Why’, You ask? 

Then you must not have seen a local without empty seats. During the rush hour, the number of humans traveling in a local is more than half the population of Belgium. 

No, that’s not a statistically proven statement and am sure its incorrect, but you get the hint. People jostle to get in and then can’t even scratch themselves due to intertwined limbs wedged under the deluge of humanity in the compartment.

‘Is this going to Dadar?’ I asked the old man sitting on the window seat.

‘You don’t even know where the train is going and yet you boarded it!’ the old man remarked with an irritated frown as if he was doing something important and I had disturbed him.

Grumpy bugger, I said to him. In my head. Assuming it was the right train with wrong people and expecting no further conversation with the old man, I buried myself into a book.

‘…mulga…’, boy.

‘…maahit naahi…’ doesn’t know.

‘…train kuthe jaat ahe…’ where the train is going.

‘Ha ha ha’ Ha Ha Ha.

The old man was jeering at me with a fellow passenger in Marathi, part of which I could catch.

‘Are you guys talking about me?’ I enquired, knowing fully well that they were.

‘Ha ha ha’, their entertainment continued at my expense, with the oldie laughing the loudest.

The old man had a thin frame. His face was shriveled like a walnut, with two eyes popping out from the sunken sockets. White hair contrasted with his dark skin. Thick nerves protruded out of his hands giving away his life-long toiling with hard labour. He wore a faded brown shirt and an unpressed grey trousers. The rexine sandals matched his shirt’s color. I couldn’t see any teeth in his mouth, but for his age, his tongue was rather caustic.

The train sped through rain-induced green surrounds. I put my focus on the book, ignoring the men and their banter. A cool breeze and rhythmic movement slowly lulled me into sleep.

****

‘Don’t you have to get down? Dadar has arrived’, the old man jolted me out of my dreamland.

‘First, he doesn’t know where the train is going, and now when the station is here, he is sleeping,’ he sounded contemptuous, but his eyes were mischievous. I hurried towards the door when the old man roared,

‘Ae ladke’, Hey boy.

Disconcerted with his tone, I turned gingerly.

‘Don’t you want your umbrella?’ his frown returned but mischief didn’t leave his eyes. He held my umbrella in his left hand, which was dangling dangerously close to the window. I dreaded that he would throw it away.

‘Oops, sorry!’, I said and stretched out my hand. He handed it over to me but landed a mild blow on my back.

‘Abhi bhul jata to, ha ha ha’, What if you forgot to take it, ha ha ha.

The unexpected affection threw me off. There was no hint of malice in his action, but I found it difficult to make any sense out of that. It took me a second to get normal. I smiled: my lips curved but my eyes quizzing.

During three years of my stay in Mumbai, I experienced numerous instances of indifference and coldness. The city that never sleeps, never took the pain to check if I was ok. 

This sudden spray of warmth was not something I had anticipated, that too from a stranger, who appeared rather hostile for the most part of the journey. To me, he was a lone tree in a parched land, which though insufficient to shelter someone from the sun adequately, was enough to remind of its existence to the world.

I moved towards the door but turned to see the old man one last time. He was looking at me, with tenderness, a toothless smile spread across his face.