Chance Encounters

Trams are a delightful sight in the City of Joy, the only ones in India. Slow yet full of heritage and history, from its modern glass roofs to its old wooden seats, the bell for a horn or the dim yellow lights, the trams snake through the city traffic, snarling like a child in a sprightly dance. They are never old, for the child in awe or the old man who sits nostalgic. They are a symbol of the soul of the city and everything it stands for: the heart, the culture, the heritage, and the glimpse of the once colonised yet glorious capital city of palaces, of British India.

The story I am about to tell dates perhaps a decade or so back. I was a teenager back then, barely fourteen, and to my imaginative mind, these idle tram rides were my blissful escape from the rush of the everyday rat race.

Quite frankly, like most teenagers, I was also clueless about my future, struggling with a bit of Algebra and Trigonometry, and trying in vain to understand the pages of basic Chemistry. Arts had always been my strong point. Nevertheless, like every Indian parent, mine was worried about their daughter flunking badly in sciences, a no-brainer for sure and decided for the first time that outside the guidance of my school and that of my parents, I needed tutorials for the same.

On the first day, as I sulked about having more mathematics to attend to, we took the 4.55PM tram to the class. It was fairly crowded on the weekday, with students in uniforms, office goers returning with their heavy bags, and some lovers sitting together enjoying the winter breeze outside. It was a long and slow trip of forty minutes, but I gathered it was far better than taking an overcrowded bus any day. At least after a few stops, I got to sit. I was sure I was going to dread every bit of these classes each week; might as well enjoy a bit of the journey to and fro. The seat that emptied up front made me hurry to grab it, as I put down my bag of books on it, startling my co-passenger a bit, then took my seat. He seemed a little older than me, and the startle made the earphone fall off his left ear as he looked up, put the end back in his ears, looked disinterested and stared out of the window. 

Being an introvert, I do not always strike up conversations with random co-passengers and dread those who do, so it was a welcome relief.

The music from his earphones was loud enough for me to hear, and I stared unmindfully at his iPod for a while. He realised he was being watched and stared back at me with questioning eyes. A little embarrassed, I took out a book from my bag and began reading. When the destination arrived, I got down from the Tram and watched it go before hurrying to the tuition class.

The next week, on the same day, the same tram was unusually crowded. I could barely manage to stand holding the plastic handle above my head when I lost my balance trying to move away from an old lady’s way and stumbled upon my own shoelaces and crashed into my co-passenger. Embarrassed, I was quick to apologise and as I turned to see who I had stumbled against, a familiar face stared back at me with an understanding nod. His face said he recognised me, and our eyes met briefly before I had to push my way through the crowd to get down.

He followed and got down after me, and as I crossed the road to the other side and turned, I seemed to have lost him in the crowd. I don’t know why I waited all week just hoping to catch him the next week on my tram ride, and I did. This time when our eyes met, we shared half a smile of courtesy, and my heart made a tiny leap at his faint smirk.

Week after week, we met in the same tram, for a good forty minutes, sat together at times, exchanged glances, and even smiled at each other when a fellow passenger was saying something amusing. We never spoke, never knew each other's name, and I never knew where he came from or where he was headed. I often found myself wondering what his voice would be like. He had dark brown expressive eyes, very common, yet not. 

I never told anyone about these encounters, the stranger on the tram ride, or the fact that he made me look forward to the dreadful tuition classes every day just for the sake of seeing him one more time. I gathered my friends would call me silly, laugh it off, or worse, suggest I should talk to him. But here is the thing, I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to ruin the silence with words or the story with dialogue. There was this unexplainable happiness in seeing him and looking forward to those chance encounters, yet doing nothing about them. There was this unfinished story, an unravelled mystery, that looked in his eyes, that heart-fluttering smile that made my day. Each day, as if in an unsaid understanding, we exchanged glances before getting off the tram; each day, we shared a disappointed look at each other if another person blocked our view. Yet, when we did have the chance of sitting beside each other, we never exchanged a word. Perhaps he, too, agreed that words ruin beautiful moments. 

The year seemed to pass too soon, and it was the last day of the tuition class. I wanted to see him for one last time; I wanted to perhaps, in some way, let him know he wasn’t going to see me around anymore. For the past year, every Monday without fail, we had seen each other. I had to let go now. I boarded the 4.55PM tram with a nervous feeling in my stomach and looked around for his familiar black bag. He was not there. For the first time in our last encounter, he was not there. I did not know what I felt at that moment, was it sadness or anger or disappointment? Maybe I felt stupid for expecting to see him there. Maybe I just felt empty and tried hard to swallow the heaviness in my chest away.

Five years on, I was in college, grown out of silly infatuations, getting used to the world and heartbreaks. I did not even remember him that much. People came into my life, and People left. That’s how life goes on, I gathered. I was older and wiser. It was a Friday, and I dragged my tired legs out of college. I decided to take a walk down the lakeside to refresh my mind. Getting myself some snacks, I walked through the decorated shaded roads by the lake, as the summer breeze played in my ears. My eyes stopped at the road ahead, in the light of dusk, as I saw two figures approaching. My heart skipped a beat as his eyes met mine and stopped. There was a fair number of people on the road, couples, old evening walkers, friends frolicking, children playing, and there he was, standing a few feet away from me, his hand in hers.

He did recognise me, the look in his eyes suggested so. Some changes were obvious over the years, but eyes don't change. The guy I once thought I knew had turned into a man. He looked at me in a moment of awe as his girlfriend held his hand and pulled him away. She didn't notice him still looking back at the girl he had met after five years. I turned back to stare at him one last time, and we smiled faintly. My heart filled with completeness watching him walk away. Perhaps because our story deserves an ending or the wounded heart its closure.

I headed home with a smile. Life has some magic to offer us every day, and he was mine, my chance encounter with fate. Maybe we never had a story, maybe we had more than one, maybe his version of the story will be different from mine, or we will eventually forget about each other someday, or perhaps not.