A slim and pretty girl sat next to me on the train the other day. With a sideways, typically female glance that lasted maybe one scant second, I had seen her clear skin, neat paisley-printed kurti and delectable woven tote that, if this story had not panned out the way it did, I would have demanded to know the provenance of. The unkempt toenails on woefully dry feet should have given me a clue, but commuting by crowded trains and uncertain taxis in the maddening metropolis that is Mumbai tends to dull your aesthetic receptors a trifle.
She sat, at a comfortable distance from me, kept at bay by my own woven leather bag. But in the aforementioned trains of Mumbai, distance never stays comfortable for more than a station’s length, if that, on a very lucky day, especially when it as hot and humid as a pre-monsoon morning can get. The compartment soon filled up, fast becoming a battleground of large, stressed, perspiring and thus fragrant women. The girl next to me had, perforce, to move closer. My bag took up residence on my lap; hers went above into the luggage rack. More women barged in and demanded their mite of space. I edged as close to the window as possible, the girl edged almost on to my lap, the lady beyond her moved closer…and so it went.
You would think that in such crushed confines people would tuck in their various limbs and try and minimise contact with other people who were equally hot, sweaty and frazzled. My neighbour was certainly not trained at that school. She undid her hair, combed it through, did it up again and then relaxed, knees apart in the most woefully unladylike manner, her paper spread, her arms, ditto. At irregular but rapidly concurrent intervals she dug her rather sharp elbow into my rather soft side, wakening a tickle-nerve I didn’t realise I had. With every nudge, I inched even closer to the window, twisting silently, subtly sideways to avoid the attacks. Meanwhile, various pages of the tabloid she was so carefully perusing slid their way on to my knee, draped themselves over my shoulder and scraped against the tender sunburn of my arm. Gradually, her smart leather handbag slid towards me and jabbed one corner into my thigh every now and then, whenever she turned a page of her paper.
I edged away as far as I could, accenting my actions with frequent glowers sideways at the girl. Any admiration of her taste in totes had faded by then. In fact, I could only be grateful that the large bag, too, however elegant, was not part of the drama, prodding me in some other unmentionable part of my anatomy. No glare, movement or pointed comment to a friend sitting near by helped. I was wedged in, flailed by elbow, bag and newspaper, all at once and each with its own assault. For a while I was given a respite, when she folded up the newsprint to do a number puzzle, sat up straight and leaned forward. My friend and I exchanged dark looks and an acerbic mutter, none of which seemed to make any difference to the girl, who proceeded to add insult to the injuries she had already inflicted by fishing out her mobile phone and chattering away to someone at the other end of the line in a loud, stentorian, very bass voice. The torture finally ended when she got up to get off, unfortunately at the same station as I did.
Why, oh why can’t people learn to keep themselves to themselves? Or is the idea of private, personal space such an alien one? If I know it, why doesn’t everyone else?
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