She again looked at her watch. It must have been 10 th time in last 15 min. With every passing minute her anxiety was increasing. The loudspeaker on the platform came to life and the commuters were told that the train was to arrive shortly. She looked at the loudspeaker hung high and cursed. And then she suddenly noticed me staring at her. She smiled sheepishly. I nodded and smiled. “They are trying our patience. There has been no train for last 20 min…” She tried justifying her swearing. I again smiled and said “Yeah”. We both regularly commuted by the same train. Though we two never talked to each other, we always exchanged a smile. She had a group of friends waiting for her who boarded the train at the previous stations. So once inside she used to be busy talking with her 4/5 friends.

The train arrived and a large sea of people jumped on it. After pushing myself in the flow of commuters I got inside with all my body parts intact (though few were complaining of being rubbed the wrong way). The train started and I looked around. Even she had succeeded in getting in and had fished out her way to her group of friends. Her friends had already started talking to her. They informed her that there was some kind of accident and so the train had stopped in between 2 stations. “I am going to be royally late for my date. Akshay must be waiting for me at the multiplex. He normally takes the train previous to this one. Even I had planned to take that train but I missed it. The movie starts at 7.30 PM. It’s already 7.00 PM… I tried his cell but its out of coverage…” She told them. “We will surely miss the beginning of the movie.” She cribbed. “Why do people cross railway lines? They lose their life and mess ours too!!” She continued. “Oye don’t make a fool out of us! You want us to believe that you 2 are actually going to watch the movie?? We have passed through this phase sweetie. The about to get married couples don’t go to movie theaters to watch movies. Rather they give the onscreen couple run for their money by putting up a highly romantic scene” One of her friends winked and teased her. It made us all smile and the girl blush.

I moved towards the door as my station approached.

The next day she was not on the platform. ‘Must have gone early to make up for the time lost yesterday’ I thought and smiled. Train arrived and I got inside. Her group sat on its usual place. I settled a bit and looked at them. Something was odd. Normally they chitchatted continuously. But today they were all quiet. One of them happened to look my way. I smiled at her. She returned the smile. But it didn’t reflect in her eyes. They remained sad. Is it just my imagination? I wondered.

And then another commuter happened to talk to the group. “Where is Reena today? She seems to have missed the train.”

The group didn’t answer for a long time and exchanged looks amongst themselves.

Finally one of them answered. “No. Today she is not there. Yesterday she lost her fiancé….”

“What???” the one enquiring screamed. The whole compartment went silent.

“Yeah… It is so shocking and tragic. Yesterday he passed away in a train accident. He fell from the train. It was this same train that we were traveling in. Yesterday this train was late. Remember? It was him….”

Life is so brutal at times….