Pune

Pune was cold when she arrived. Platform number two was deserted. A few mongrels fought over a bit of cloth. The others who had traveled with her in the train had left. The old man and his son too fidgeted as they waited for her cousin to show up. The train had reached on time at midnight, there was no reason for him to not come, and unless he had never received the telegram her brother had sent. She realized that she was keeping the two men back and asked them to go ahead and walked with them to the staircase where a few women sat huddled together. She said that she would be fine and firmly smiled at them. They went their way and she shivered with the fear of being lonely in the city.

In about an hour her cousin Varghese, finally showed up, by that time she had almost started to weep. He just said that his shift had got over at eleven and it took him time to get to the railway station. The cursory questions and answers were dealt with curtly. She felt a kind of emptiness by the behavior and decided to keep silent.

The tonga from the railway station to the air force station quarters took her along a ten kilometer ride. Varghese was wearing a thin sweater, he said with a smirk that he had forgotten to mention to her to get a blanket or a sweater as Pune was cold in winter. They crossed the over bridge and turned to a dark road lined with huge trees that looked like ghosts in the dark. Then suddenly there were a few building and bulbs that glowed along the street. She looked around and felt lonely.

Velvet of the night were decorated with the jewels of sporadic tube lights and bulbs, which threw their yellow or white rings of lighted domains only to have the darkness and the sounds of the night reclaim its glory. She could smell the decay of moss from a nearby river, somewhere alongside was a tree that holding the nests of a few crow that had splattered the road with marks of white. The road turned into a smooth road whose tar glimmered with the polish of a million tyres. In the distance a hill held in its shadows some building that were indistinguishable. Lions from the British times held spheres under their paws and stood in stately silence at the mouth of the stone bridge. She could see the river had been blocked with a bund and on either sides the waters shone and rippled. Two scarred figures stood entwined at a circle, one a fisherman and his woman lit by a sole dirty lamp, which gave the pair the look of a sad couple tired of watching the world, go by.

She tried to make conversation with Varghese and gave up when he gave monosyllabic answers, she wondered why. Half an hour had passed since the ride had started, she thought to herself that in five minutes her village could be covered, end-to-end. She looked at the tin and woodsheds that stood by, they contained stories, which like hers were within the confines of the walls. Susamma was getting uncomfortable by the minute and when the tonga stopped at the gates of a large compound she was relieved. Varghese grumbled with the tongawala and finally gave him the money, she dragged her trunk down and stood motionless.