Chapter 6

I knew all the occupants of my compartment would examine me as curiously as they had done the first time I entered, more so now, for there remained the obvious reason to wonder why I took my backpack wherever I went. I avoided their eyes purposefully, wasted no time in swinging off my backpack and dumping it quickly on the upper berth I was to occupy. Hoping against hope that the wet stink I still smelled was just the aftereffect of being locked up for long minutes in the rank bathroom, I settled myself on the same seat as before. I fished out the glorious device tailored to alienate you effectively from your environment, my mobile phone, and started swiping.

The elderly couple were still talking, but in hushed tones now. I found that odd. I would not dare to check up on the others. I kept my eyes riveted to the PUBG’s loading logo, hoping the man and the other three women were minding their own business. 

In the next ten minutes, I had managed to kill two assailants in the game and appreciate my backpack was not done smelling.

Through the first few minutes, I waited for the residual odour in my nostrils to be swept away by the wind rushing in. It did pass in some time, and I sat up with a smug look at the others in the compartment. The girl sat huddled in her corner, legs tucked up and hiding her b***s, a pair of white earphone wires trailing from ears and snagging where they connected. Loose strands of her hair were fluttering in the wind. It looked cute.

I did not deign to appreciate the other two ladies in vivid detail, but noticed that they had fallen silent. One of them reclined her head against the seat and kept her eyes closed as if sleep was getting the better of her and the other eyed my wounded toe. I considered unwrapping the hankie and exploring if the damage contained any interesting new update, but dismissed the idea for later.

The lanky man shook in an explosive coughing fit, hawked up noisily and let it fly out the window with the ease of a man who has done it a number of times before. He stooped, pulled up the hem of the lungi and wiped his mouth, and covered his nose with it to blow hard once before smoothing it down and straightening up. The ladies exchanged glances. 

I found his manner amusing, and made to turn back to the game when the familiar smell washed over me. The unmistakable, tangy odour, cloyed with time, and almost nauseating now. I gulped, glanced at the faint shadows of wet patches on the thighs of my jeans. Quick images of what would ensue if caught drunk in a train flashed by in my head. I had never had to know the specific details, but I was fairly certain it involved Railway police and generous helpings of shame.

It wafted in and out in irregular intervals, but was very much there. I stole a surreptitious glance at the younger of the ladies. Her face shriveled with a look of disgust. She wrinkled her nose, waved a lazy hand in front of her face, and mouthed something to her companion. I jerked back to my mobile screen. Beads of sweat bloomed on my forehead. A nerve ticked on the side of my neck.

I scattered my attention among the occupants of the compartment, picking out the specifics of their whispers. I was fingering the mobile aimlessly now - somebody else had shot me dead. A tangible change in the atmosphere was evident. People were no longer lost in their harmless, private islands, but wary, tacitly sucked in together like drops of water against an interesting oddity. The disturbance showed in the way conversations segued into conspiratorial whispers, eyes roving around with judgmental appraisals, and uncomfortable, shuffling fidgets. The couple by my side were muttering in tones quieter than I thought they were capable of. The girl at the corner tucked her hair back, surveyed the compartment with an exaggerated frown and irritable eyes. The face, I thought, held promise of a lovely woman, given a genuine smile and less theatrics.

The only person not to acknowledge the shift in the setting was the lanky man, and that, perhaps, was what made the younger of the two women across from me to peek at him now and then with quiet remarks to her companion. The older woman made no attempt to hide the cause of her unease: her face remained contorted in a scowl, the index finger and thumb of her right hand rose to pinch her nostrils closed too often to be discreet. The girl chewed at the wire of her earphones, looked at the conferring women askance, and, with a prominent jerk of her head, turned back to the window.

I ventured occasional glances at the women, and whenever their eyes met mine I felt in them the familiar, apprehensive assessment of a stranger. There was no trace of suspicion or menace. Not yet, at least. With some guilt I regarded the man across the aisle, who was peering into and pressing switches on his outmoded, handy mobile, humming the tune of an old MGR song, blessedly oblivious of the accusing stares stacking up against him. I wished for the cursed smell to go away but it breezed in every few seconds, intense and insistent. As I watched him, the man raised his head and fixed his gaze on mine for the first time. One look at his eyes was enough for me to ensure that the benefit of the doubt would rest firmly in my favour as long as he sat there. His eyes were hollow orbs, swiveling in discolored, diseased sclera.

My musings took a new turn after contemplating his squalid visage. It must have been the infectious reaction to gauge a person by his looks, which ran rampant in that compartment at the moment. Or it could have been my perception of a hint of redemption round the corner, the promise of an explanation to do away with my guilt, even at the expense of an innocent person. Or it could be a mix of both. I started breathing a bit easier, entertaining the notion that the disheveled man was drunk and smelling. Just when this thought occurred to me, as if on cue, the odour took on more of whiskey in it, with less to nonexistent undertones of dampness. I made a point of turning my face to the old man time and again, and fashioned my face with what I thought would be a convincing look of reproach.