Naked I Came

  Adios

  Delhi, the metropolis, was a bustling city, and Justin became very busy in the process of job hunting. He missed Shelly a lot. The only way of communication between them was by the way of postal mail, and that took at least five to six days to cross the boundaries between the states before the postman could deliver the love letters laced with the perfumes of his sweetheart. Justin’s family could not afford the luxury of a telephone, which was a rare commodity, with more often than not the ornamental cradle phone kept on a black three-legged stool. In that era, it was mostly installed at the residence of government employees with the clause of ‘24 hours’ on-call’ added to their job description. The telephone lines hanging around a wall bracket on the outside wall of house were a status symbol around the block.

  In between his routine of rummaging through the newspaper for job-related advertisements and applying for a score of them, Justin made it a point to routinely peak out of the first-floor window of his house to catch a glimpse of the postman. The postman donning a khaki uniform and a Nehru cap would routinely appear on his bicycle to deliver the mail in the neighbourhood. A pile of letters of all sizes would be neatly stacked on the rear carrier of his bicycle, with another bag full of more mail strapped across his shoulder. The postman who always seemed to be in hurry to deliver the mail would—with one swift motion—lean his ride on the wall, pull out the mail from his stack, and drop it in the mailbox. The walls of most houses either had the paint peeled off or had a slight dent made in the place where the postman would lean his bicycle before delivering letters in the mailboxes of different shapes and sizes. Seemingly spotless walls meant the occupants did not get much mail, peeled-off paint showed they received letters every now and then, and a dent in the wall meant that the postman’s bicycle frequented that particular house the most.

  For the past few days, Justin had been anxiously waiting for a letter from Shelly and at the appointed hour, he would stand at the window though taking care that he may not fall in direct line of the sight of the postman. On a few earlier occasions, while he was waiting at the window, Justin felt very uncomfortable when all of a sudden the postman, while dropping a letter into his mailbox, looked up and met his gaze. Justin felt the man had a meaningful smile on his face, but how would he know that the letter carried love songs from his beloved? Surely, he would not know; it was all in Justin’s head, or maybe over the years, the postman was able to discern the contents of the letters, just by gauging the facial expressions of the people awaiting the mail.

  That day, as Justin was stealthily peaking from the window, he heard the ring of the bicycle bell of the postman. His heart missed a beat for he knew for sure that there would be a letter for him from Shelly. He rushed down the staircase jumping many steps at a time, unlocked the mailbox and—Yes!—there was a letter for him. He slammed the mailbox shut and ran back up the staircase, again taking many steps in each stride. He took the makeshift letter opener that was his pencil, ripped through the side of the inland letter, closed the door behind him and started reading it. Yes, the light brown mark of Shelly’s lipstick making the imprint of her full-blown lips was there! Justin pressed his fingers on the imprint as if touching her lips. After longingly looking at the imprint, he lightly kissed it. He read each word lovingly, sighing and pausing at each endearment and replying to each one of it in his heart. The last part of the letter made his blood rush through his veins, for it said, Shelly was coming to Delhi in the middle of the next week. It was as if his wish had come true.

  The four days in between were the longest time Justin had ever waited for anything. He reached the Old Delhi railway station, much earlier than the train was scheduled to steam in. The platform earmarked for the arrival of Jaipur Express was at that point in time occupied by another train, which was preparing to depart.

  Now, in those days, the compartments of the trains in India were fitted with cubicle toilets the inside of which had aluminum or sheet paneling. The lower portion of the toilet seat was fitted with an inverted bullhorn pipe to dump the waste on the tracks below. However, the down side was that this inverted drainpipe virtually became a bullhorn, and while the train was moving at full steam, the clanking sound made by the friction between the wheels and the tracks got amplified greatly and could be felt full blast inside the closed cubicle. This reverberating sound at great decibel was not for the meek. A notice was displayed to use the toilet only while the train was in motion and outside the vicinity of a station, in order to keep the platform area free of the offending smell. But many a times, the faint-hearted who could not brave the rumbling sound while the train was moving preferred to use the toilet cubicle while the train was stationary and parked at a platform thus leaving the waste dumped on the tracks open to further petrification and giving rise to ‘ghoulish’ smell.

  The platform was busy, and the peculiar smell, being the ‘concoction’ of the putrid smell emanating from the tracks and the smell of puri and chole and samosa being deep fried at numerous vending carts hung over the area. Few coolies with load of suitcases on their heads and big roll-over sleeping bags, hung over their shoulders, were running the length of the train to lodge their passengers in their respective compartments.

  To avoid the chaotic scene, Justin proceeded to the front of the platform where his childhood passion, ‘the black steam engine’ stood. Majestic in appearance and thoughtfully decorated by the pilot, with brass plates adorning the structure of the boiler and the chimney, the steam engine stood as if waiting impatiently to move forward towards its destination. Hissing and letting off steam, it looked like a big black stallion that was about to gallop on its trail. At the open gate of the cabin, which were fashioned like the arch-gates of some old-fort, stood the pilot of the train. Straining out his neck as far as it would go, to see through a sea of human hands and heads, the ‘one hand’ of his train conductor, waving a green flag signaling to move the restless black stallion on its onward journey. Getting a synchronised green signal in front and the wave of the green flag by the conductor in the rear, the pilot loosened the reins of the black beast which all of a sudden came to life and started to move forward with lot of hissing and letting off of the steam as if by a dragon. Fascinated even at his age, Justin saw the majestic steam engine move out of the platform with the rest of the train trailing behind.

  The track was now clear to receive Shelly’s train, the Jaipur Express. Justin did not have to wait too long before he saw the diesel locomotive of Jaipur Express pulling in with its train. The gush of the wind produced by the fast approaching locomotive disturbed the swarm of flies that feasted on and around the tracks. Once again, the platform was filled with the offending concoction. With one hand resting on the side of his head, protecting his hair from being ruffled by the gushing wind that came from the passing train, Justin strained to focus his eyes on the faces that were passing in front of him in quick succession. Loads of people were pressing hard against each other on the now open doors of the train and even more faces pressed harder against the iron grills of the windows, looking out anxiously either for someone who might have come to receive them or trying to signal a porter to carry their luggage.

  Spotting someone in a fast moving train is an art. Justin always preferred to stand at a distance to get a wider view, so that he could simultaneously scan many faces that were peering out of the window. However, whatever tactics one employed, there was always a chance that the face one might be looking for would get missed. Keeping his face still, Justin moved his eyes swiftly from side to side, holding in view each compartment that passed by. Suddenly, on catching a glimpse of Shelly’s beautiful and equally anxious face, his eyes lit up with joy. He started to run alongside the train holding Shelly’s hand and exchanging sweet nothings, which, due to the noise that pervaded the atmosphere, could not be deciphered into intelligent words. The moment the train slowed down a little Justin jumped into the compartment and pushed his way to the cubical where Shelly was standing holding onto her b
aggage. Justin quickly gave her a light hug and a small peck on the cheek—that is all what the society was prepared to accept in the early seventies. Even that gesture attracted scornful and disapproving looks from the cultured crowd, as if saying not in so many words that such people were the cause of degrading standards of the society. Innocent hugs at such public places could also attract unwanted reaction from the not so cultured and the ruffians that patronised these places, and Justin at 5’7’’ with 140 lbs. of weight to throw around was not in a mood to encounter any assault from such elements on their turf.

  At home, Justin’s mother who was otherwise a very humble soul did not feel very comfortable with the idea of an unmarried young girl traveling by herself and coming to stay with them, but she was too gentle and cultured to be vocal about it.

  The next two days they visited some common relatives and the third day they kept for themselves. On the third day, once Justin’s parents had left for work, Justin and Shelly had the house to themselves. Sitting on the bed holding hands they kept talking and reminiscence about the old days. The long separation was taking its toll, their breathing was heavy and the heat between the two became unbearable. The intimacy that they had missed for a long time was theirs; the pent-up passions became a fury that was promising to consume them completely. It was the first time in three years that the two were in a room with no prying eyes around. The closeness and the privacy they were enjoying slowly led them to an arousal over which they were losing control. Slowly under the sheets, they were devoid of any clothing when Shelly who by then slipped under him spoke something in a muffled voice.

  ‘What, Shelly?’ he asked.

  ‘Come’, said Shelly with urgency in her voice.

  Until now, the two have drawn satisfaction from each other by every other means but had avoided the final act of love-making, which was not only fraught with dangers of unexpected pregnancy but also was something considered proper between husband and wife only. Proper! As if everything going on between them was proper.

  Justin was reared in an environment with very clear concept of what was proper and improper, though in that area he could not steadfastly hold onto the ‘proper’ except for this final act to which Shelly was urging him to initiate and his own flesh also craving hard to attain. Within that split second, while still hanging in the air, Justin made a choice which he could never understand as right or wrong—he did not give in to the urge and denied himself the fulfillment of his own ultimate carnal desire.

  That was the last he saw of Shelly. It was as if he lost a part of himself forever.