“Please stand clear of the doors” the electronic woman announced. But Virat was away from them, distant from the metro even, drifting down his mental paradise already, even before the characteristic ‘ping’ sound the train made before it started off for the next station.

Images, literally hundreds of them, flood his mental space and he tries to grab the best like a lover of flowers descended upon an entire valley filled with them. Here is one where she sneaked out in the afternoon, citing extra tuitions for Math and they met up behind Sharma Uncle’s house, knowing for sure that the whole house would be sleeping, only to realize how wrong they were. He smiled at the memory of them holding hands, running helter skelter to the scooty that was parked away, their heavy breathing and giggles intermingling, Sharma Uncle’s confused and drowsy face wondering who they could be. Or wait, here’s one where seven of the guys and girls from school went to catch the movies and Sneha’s fingers had casually brushed his hand when the lights were dim and his heart had grown wings and flown away on its own flight of fancy. Or perhaps…

“Next station, Qutab Minar. Doors will open on your right. Please mind the gap.”

Twenty stations. Two minutes per station. A total of forty minutes, at the very least. Minus the slowing down, doors remaining open longer than necessary, irrational stops on the line, the annoying ‘we are sorry for the delay’. They were never, ever sorry. Sneha feels like a lifetime away.

He tries to bury his head into their shared memories again, but the distant sight of the historic tower catches his eyes. He closes them.

She is a queen, clad in a flowing robe, crafted out of hands that do not belong to this time nor age, the silks and delicate thread work glistening in the fresh light of the full moon that now illuminates the reddened skies. He is her king, the jahanpanah himself, smelling of sweet roses plucked from the royal gardens, his turban crusted with priceless jewels, spoils from the countless battles waged and won. The endless arches and corridors cast magnificent shadows around them as the lovers of ages walk towards each other under the light of the glowing white orb of the heavens, ready to be united forever.

Sneha’s features come into focus. She is close, so near that he wants to reach out and touch her. But he holds the moment, and decides to take another step. But before he can, her smile withers and his body is gripped by unnatural shivers. The palace around him ripples in the moonlight, as if made of water.

“Beta ladies seat hai. Please de do.”

An aunty has been shaking him for what might have been plenty of seconds. An uncle sitting next to him gives him a disgusted look. Other passengers have also managed to locate the drama and focused their attention. Virat notices a young boy, possibly in school, ready with his phone camera, prepared to record should things go awry. He quietly nods and vacates the seat, squeezing in between two men, spotted in white, possibly returning after a whitewash. The stink makes him gag. He notices the school boy dejectedly pocket his phone.

“Next station, AIIMS…”

He catches the drift of some conversation that is happening next to him.

“Something about a beautiful girl and sitting on a stove.”

“Please! Why would Einstein’s Theory of Relativity be about a girl? Mad or what?”

“Arre, I am serious! It’s not the actual theory, but it’s what he explained to a layman!”

“Einstein did not have time to talk to a layman!”

But isn’t that what had happened? From the first time he had seen Sneha (‘Class, Sneha would be joining us mid-year as she has just been transferred’) to now. How long had it been? Good god, four years had passed! In the stolen moments between classes, five minute post-tuition breaks, single ring calls disconnected on the landline, waiting by the market just to catch sight of her passing by, time had evaporated. School got over, so did college admissions and the capital city of New Delhi welcomed them with open arms. She ended up settling down at the Miranda House hostel while Viraat was stuck with his Dad’s distant cousin who lived in the back of the beyond, in Sultanpur. Though his grades could only get him as far as Deshbandhu College in South Campus, the metro ferried him along, mostly on weekends now, to meet her, when he would catch a couple of hours of stolen moments, just like it was back in school, when expenses didn’t need to be curbed, when school was just something you did…

“God, I thought the metro ride would go on forever! What’s up?” Virat smiled, sitting at the cement seats located next to the Miranda House hostel gate. Ahawaldar’s eyes followed them from inside a PCR as it passed by on its routine rounds. Virat stared back till the PCR was out of sight.

Sneha was unusually quiet.

“Eh, kuch bol na!” he asked again. Sneha looked up, her face expressionless. Two teardrops perched precariously on the sides of her eyes. A dagger, slow and deliberate, pierced Viraat’s heart and stayed there.

“What…what is it?” he blubbered. His head was swimming. Scenes from Bollywood movies fought for attention inside his head.

“This…” she gulped, like she was trying very hard at swallowing a bitter truth, “can’t go on Virat.”

The dagger turned. Slowly.

“You…you don’t mean that. Do you like someone else?” Viraat tried to twist his lips to make it resemble a smile. He felt his fingers tremble and grabbed the concrete seat hard to stabilize himself.

“It’s not that” she whispered, her voice choked. A tear trickled down, slowly, almost anti-climactic.

“Well…if that’s not the case, then we can take some time off I think. All couples do that, I think it’s absolutely cool and obviously there is no need to hurry. Let’s take a week, think things through, iron the rough edges out and we will be back as new! It also helps to rejuvenate relationships you know, I was reading this article the other day in the newspaper…”

“I am going to get married Viraat” she said and looked straight at him.

The knife went through and ripped his heart to shreds.

All sounds seized around him. Time came to a standstill. He was in a bubble- one soaked in dull colors, browns, maroons, dark greens, the fading light of the dusk creating a dreary atmosphere around them. His mind, like a stuck toy, refused to budge. It kept repeating the word ‘married’ again and again and again, in a ceaseless loop, but the meaning of it still evaded him. There had to be a mistake. This couldn’t be happening to him. This was definitely someone else’s script.

“But you can’t” he said and realized how stupid the words sounded.

“Why can’t I, Viraat? Because you are in love with me? Because we are this ‘thing’ from school? Love stories happen all the time and then they are gone. What is left behind are marriages. Marriages are real Viraat, whether you like them or you don’t. And clearly, we can’t get married right now. You aren’t a kid, I am sure you can figure out the reasons on your own” she said in a monotone, her voice strangely even, without any strain or anger.

“But that sounds wrong” Viraat spoke, but the voice seemed to be coming from far away. He was a puppet, a wind-up toy that was just saying what it was supposed to, without any thought.

“Oh, grow up! It was all this right and wrong business that has got us here. Uncle, don’t push her towards science, her first love is English! Get her into Miranda House, she will love it there! All this while I would already have been on my way to becoming an engineer and not some goddamn woman who would spend the next decade studying, trying to figure out what to do with her degrees!”

“But you liked…you liked English” his voice came out in a rasp. The back of his throat felt like sandpaper.

“So? So what? You liked Jennifer Lopez, right? You should be studying her and not that crap course you are taking anyways!”

“But that doesn’t make sense!”

“Oh sense, nonsense! What’s decided is decided. Make your peace with it. This is the only way the cookie goes Viraat; crumbling before you have been able to take a bite off it. Move on. This station is already behind you.”

“But…”

His phone was ringing. The last thing he wanted to do was attend a phone call.

“Go ahead, pick it up. Might be important” she said, turning and walking away towards the hostel gate.

“Wait” Viraat said, but the voice seemed stuck in his throat. The ring kept growing louder and louder, drowning everything around them, the trees, seats, the road which ran alongside the entrance…

“Whaa…hell..hello?” Viraat fumbled. His shirt was drenched in sweat.

“How long will you take! I have less than two hours before curfew!” Sneha’s voice, ambrosia for mortal souls, bless her, was on the other side. He blinked and managed to read the name of the station outside.

“Vishwavidyalaya”

He ran through the doors, just as they were closing, his bag snagging on the door only for a second, and then he was through. He ran, ran as fast as his feet would take him, down the platform, up the excruciatingly slow escalator, along the winding corridor built under the main road that often caught muffled sounds of vehicles passing overhead, breathlessly speaking into his mobile,

“You won’t believe how long I was inside that train…”

***

“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity”.

-Albert Einstein