He had the urgent need to be the master. So took out his belt and beat her up. It was another day but today wasn’t the same, the sun was usual but she decided to leave. She stacked money in her vanity bag and sneaked out when he was in the toilet, the day was still bright. She took an auto to the railway station and not giving a second thought climbed the train. Inside it was hot and humid, she used end of her saree to fan herself and waited for the train to move.
“Where are you going?” The lady in the family who was observing her asked. She was trying to be helpful probably she sensed her edginess. Savithri hadn’t decided and hence a moment of vacillation. The woman repeated her query this time rather stern, savithri seethed in irritation though it wasn’t apparent in her demeanor. She concocted a name she fancied. Next to the woman sat two obese children who busied on the window making fun of vendors, the man read some document he wasn’t bothered by his children.
“It is getting warm these days. Are you working somewhere?” the woman continued “you aren’t carrying any luggage must be an emergency visit”. The man raised his eyes from his reading and ran it over her.
“Nothing emergency. Just that I like traveling…and like traveling alone with no luggage. It is much fun that way” she emphasized the word fun and said it little louder that the man crossed his legs few times. There wasn’t much interaction after that the woman studiously avoided her and kept her attention outside the window. A cool breeze had started to play on the canopies of the trees, it wriggles into the branches and swept the trees. Sun had set and the night readied for another unaccustomed summer rain. She felt a freedom she hadn’t experienced before, it was liberating. She was exhilarated. This time she initiated the interaction, she cleared her throat loudly and asked the man who was pretending to be reading “Excuse me. Where are you going?” she played with the word ‘you’, the man after a momentary astonishment (probably he hadn’t expected it from her or that he wasn’t used to these situations) and discomfort asserted himself by loudly proclaiming that he was going to Sirsapur. In the meantime the woman had started to glare at her.
“You mean Sirsapur near Shakarabad?” Savithri continued, she liked the belligerence in her tone.
“No the other one next to Sherbagh” he had purposely disagreed. She liked the way the conversation was working on the man. She hadn’t spoken to a stranger for many years except maybe the milkman or the odd salesman. Strangeness of the world that was hidden, silhouettes that melted in each other into an overwhelming forbidding darkness. But still she could see their nakedness and it had a peculiar empowering affect on her, she was being satiated. She could easily spot them from their hiding. It gave her the control as to how much to dress them and in what way. It is the control that she had lost for herself. Their every clumsy attempt on decency and façades of propriety made them more obvious, it was pitiable. It was the familiar world that had failed her, the hypocrisies of intimacy was bewildering. She walked around awkwardly stumbling almost every step. She had started to feel a strange relation with her body and lately it was entering her soul.
