In the train of thoughts.

Marriage.


The mehendi still smelling fresh and the rich brown diagrams still running beautiful without a blotch, uninterrupted.

He doesn’t want her to step on the floor without her sandals. He kneels down almost touching his face on the floorboard and takes them out with a smile that should last forever.

They giggle a lot, he tickles her a lot. Love is blind eh? They should stay blind forever.
Love in a marriage is over rated sometimes and misunderstood as love in the beginning. Why does many marriages fall apart then?

They are a brand new couple, living its honeymoon period. Will they attend to each others problem with same care like they do while they feed each other chappatis now.

I do not know.

Then I caught his face in her eyes and wondered.

When its raining out in the street, will he go fetch her across the street with an umbrella?.
When after two three babies, will he tenderly kiss her belly which is strained?
When she makes his breakfast, lunch for him in the morning and spends the day thinking what to cook for dinner, will he feed her love back?

When she grows older, fatter and uglier, will he still find her as desirable as now?

When they have a disagreement, will he come forward for an agreement or will her feet which now refuse to walk on a floor will succumb to broken beer glasses?

I do not know…

He draws the curtain and there is no more giggling.











Marriage 2

I woke up and the curtains were flying. They had left and an old couple ushered in from the next station.

The grandma had a toothless smile and the grandpa wore a crispy white kurta pajama.
They didn’t make much sound or giggling.
He talks sternly in a language I do not understand but I comprehended that he didn’t want her to eat the ladoos.
Grandma rarely talks, she does her toothless smile and eats half of the ladoo and gives half to him. She doesn’t feed him and he doesn’t tickle her.
He knows that he belongs to her more than he possesses her.


Grandma wanted to leave for the restroom, she just wore his slippers.
He need not bend.
When it took a while, he went and waited for her at the bathroom door.

Is this love or beyond it?
I do not know.

They stagger back to their berths, jostling.