The Lady with a HOT RED BAG

Tuesday morning 10 o’clock standing at Bandra station, Rehan was getting late for his work. He recently started a new project with a leading telecom company wherein he had to go to different locations and collect information and make the necessary changes in the working system of the company. Rehan usually travelled in first class but this month the peon got him the second class pass for one month, now he is forced to travel with the populace which believes that the more the oil on their heads the more money they are going to make and he had to overlook the essence of human efforts which came out as their sweats while trying to enter the compartment. It was not like that he didn’t encounter such men in first class who sweat or released their essences, but it was less pungent because of the cover that cologne and after shave provided.

He was all concerned about being there on time because this was the first time he was going to meet the Sewree dealer of the distribution. His whole attention was on the indicator which still showed ‘ST 10.15 S 08’, he was worried and when Rehan gets nervous he also starts to sweat so to cover his mess up he gets his handkerchief out and wipes his forehead while doing all this he notices something, just beside the indicator where the stairs ended there was a distinct figure who was approaching towards the first class ladies compartment, it was a lady in her mid twenties, sporting a formal tight shirt on dark blue denims, hairs still wet from the shower which might have ended just half an hour back, glasses on her face made her look professional and her i-pod must have played the music she really liked because it created a smile on the pretty face, it was more noticeable due to the right amount of lipstick she had put on. Rehan was mesmerised by this lady. Suddenly he got a call; it was Zoya, Rehan’s hubby since the days they studied in college now Rehan stays in Mumbai after he came here for his management course & now he plans to marry her after getting a house of his own, while still on the phone Rehan realises that he just missed a very flashy thing with that lady, by the way Rehan has assumed by now that the lady is called Madhusmita just because he felt that lady was a Bong chick and her features resemble to someone in TV soaps which he used to watch during his collegiate days and her name was Madhumita,  so Rehan decides to add a ‘S’ and prove that he is an ass. Well the flashy thing was a ‘bag’ it was the first thing that Rehan had noticed but simply managed to get lost in the beauty of the lady. Still on phone, Zoya nagging on the other ends about the eating habits of Rehan and Lady busy on her i-pod. Rehan assumed her to be working in a corporate office but after he noticed the bag he added that she must be working with a media house, he was forced to do so because his office colleagues (ladies) never sported something as flashy as that. Rehan was really keen on observing his “Madhusmita” than talking to Zoya, Rehan never came to know how but Zoya could always tell what Rehan wanted at a particular time. Zoya hung up and Rehan continued...

Suddenly Rehan realised he had came here to board the train, but the indicator said more 5 minutes of waiting till the train comes so he again as a moron continued to observe. He considered this habit of his as a strength for him just because someone had said to him; ‘be a good observer of things’. Rehan as usual replaced ‘things’ with ‘Girls’. Suddenly the lady realises something and walks towards the store which sells the confectionary items, there she buys a couple of halls, puts one in the pocket and opens the other and puts it in her mouth and when she doesn’t find a place to throw the wrapper puts it in her pocket too. Now wasn’t she a good citizen?? Rehan realises that Madhusmita must have been eating halls regularly; why? Just because she could open it so easily, people who have eaten Halls know that it’s a trick in itself to open it. Now comes a bigger assumption, Rehan is worried whether Madhu smokes!! So he applies a litmus test by observing the lips (it was more of a ‘bahana’ for Rehan to look more closely at her lips, for it he didn’t want the guilt of looking at a hot girl’s lips without any reason) he enjoyed every moment of that halls moving around in Madhu’s mouth, Madhu was making pretty shapes with her lips while eating that mint. The train had come and the barrier of the ladies compartment came between the second class and first class ladies compartment which Madhu boarded. Rehan never knew where she will get down, so to get the glimpse of her walking by he chose to stand at the door. Three stations went by and he didn’t see Madhu getting down, the next station was Sewree, he had to get down here. He had lost all his hopes of seeing her again. But as fate had come to Rehan’s pocket, Madhu got down at Sewree and walked behind Rehan. Rehan as a gentleman, he allowed Madhu to take the lead and followed her, after the foot-over bridge ended she halted and looked back, took a few steps to stand by the side, probably she was waiting for someone. Rehan had no interest in knowing who was it, Rehan pulled out his phone and rang up Mr. Satish Pandey, the man he was to meet. All the way to the office he was thinking of the Lady with a Hot Red Bag. After a couple of traffic lights he realises that he has a meeting to attend and he is already late and still doesn’t have his tie in place, so he starts to put the tie in place wears the coat and gets in the office, he is welcomed with a coffee. The day ends with a few debates over the table and Rehan is on his way back to his rented apartment in Bandra. While he was on the train listening to his favourite tracks on his phone he again gets back to the thought of ‘Madhusmita’ and wonders who she was waiting for but suddenly Zoya’s thought strikes his mind and he realises that he hasn’t made a call to her during the busy day, this was nothing new for Zoya as Rehan tends to get engrossed in other things often and forgets to call her, but today it was different for Rehan, he was thinking of a girl he saw in the morning all day. Rehan again out of guilt calls Zoya immediately and tries to get into a sweet conversation ignoring the presence of smelly men around in the train, time passes and he reaches Bandra still online with Zoya, he walks pass through the same place where he was standing in the morning and again remembers the Lady with the Hot Red Bag. Zoya hangs up the phone because her dad called her. Rehan hails a rick and gets home. Never ever imagining what was in store for the next day.

Rehan had to go to Sewree for the next one week so as to complete the assignment. He gets up in the morning and reaches Bandra in time but he just missed the 9.55 train and the indicator is showing 10.15 again. He is standing at the same place as the day before and suddenly his heart beats goes up, there she is again, his Madhusmita carrying the same bag, maybe the same jeans but different top a green loose fit T-shirt, looking stunningly beautiful. Rehan never imagined that he would get to see her again but he guessed he was lucky that day. He kept the observation part a bit discrete today because he had seen last day some people looking at him when he was staring at her. He got down at Sewree and waited for some time and then followed Madhu and found out she waited for a colleague of hers’ at station daily, a sigh of relief came naturally to him, he himself could never found out what was that for. He hailed a taxi and saw both the women walking. It was quite obvious for Rehan to note that Madhu had a routine which she followed by waiting for the 10.15 train. For the next two days Rehan did the same, everyday noting something or the other that he missed on the day 1. Rehan was really enjoying his daily 10.15 train.

It was Friday and Rehan had asked for first-half off since he wanted to go for Friday Prayers but Rehan being the rascal he was, he woke up early and went to catch the train as usual in the morning. He had all the time in the world today to check on assumptions he made about Madhusmita, so instead of hailing a taxi he walks behind Madhu, strangely she was alone that day, after a few steps one assumption proved right, she smoked the brand he still can’t say but she smoked like the ladies in the bond movie, elegant as a princess. After a long walk as Rehan decided to gather the courage and talk to her he realises that she is wearing a flat shoe and she was really tall. Rehan had a complex with tall women he was really uncomfortable with them while talking and he always made an ass out of him by always blurting “you are so tall”. He had now realised that when he said that; he was saying I am a nobody in front of you and from there onwards there was no second talks ever because he could never gather the courage again, same thing happened here he lost all the courage to talk to Madhusmita but he decided to follow her till her destination, after a walk of ten minutes she entered in a compound and then the second assumption came true, she worked for Navbharat press; a media firm. Rehan did not enter the premise and walked straight. He also bought a smoke and sat smoking while he was lost in his thoughts; he received a message from Zoya it said, “whr r u? it’s frdy 2day, srch a masjid, n gv me cal whn u r dun, luv u jaan, tk cr”  Rehan’s confusion was solved, he knew what he had to do, he finished the smoke, got up and searched for a mosque and after that gave a call to Zoya.

It was Monday when he was back to Bandra but this time he was going to Churchgate and boarded a different train, till now he has not seen Madhusmita again. Rehan is still working with the same firm and is planning to buy a house, Zoya still calls her intermittently and the first thing he did after that Friday’s prayer was calling up Zoya and narrating her the whole one week incidents one by one and himself came to understand that Zoya was the one for him, Zoya knows that Rehan is an idiot but still trusts him, its long time love after all. But The Lady with the Hot Red Bag had become an integral part of Rehan’s life and he never forgot her and still assumes that she was named “Madhusmita”.