One late Friday evening, a young woman waited outside
her office building for a pre-booked share cab. Amidst the heavy rain, she was
barely visible under the umbrella and the weight of her heavy bags. After great
difficulty, the cab driver located her near the traffic signal. She hopped in,
sighed and closed her eyes, letting a sense of calmness take over.
A hundred meters away, a lanky man saw a cab
turn at the signal and wondered if it was the one he was waiting for since the
last 30 minutes. To his relief, it was and he allowed his drenched self into
the cab almost immediately. He had barely noticed the young woman submerged under
her bags.
As this was the woman’s daily mode of commute,
she should have ideally been used to other people sharing the cab with her.
However, she always felt like it was an invasion of her personal space. Already
queasy due to the wet weather, the entry of a man into the cab only made her
more uncomfortable. Adding dampness to the situation, the man was unapologetic
about entering the cab completely drenched. He then doused himself with a
familiar deodorant that she had learnt to hate.
The man was grateful to be sitting down after
hours of running around for an event at work. He had just noticed the tiny girl
sharing the cab with him and she looked like she was judging him. He was not
sure whether striking a conversation about the horrible weather and explaining
about his broken umbrella would help. He hoped that spraying a deodorant would reduce
the dankness in the air. Through a half glance, he noticed she possibly was
older than she looked. Gauging from the corporate look and the many bags, he tagged
her as one of those high-driven consultants who had no time for family. The man
mentally ticked the names of all the acquaintances he knew who were in similar
professions and did not value family. He wished he still had one to go back
home to.
The woman looked at the raindrops race each
other off the window. She used to love rains when she was younger, but ever
since her mother passed away five monsoons ago, her feelings towards it became neutral.
Apart from many memories, her mother had left her a small apartment where she
lived alone and her father’s last name “Martin”. She bore the last name of a
person she had never met. Her father too might be dead for all she knew, as her
parents separated quite early on. The only memory of him was the ridiculous fragrance
of the deodorant she just got a whiff of and engulfed her in loneliness once again.
The man seemed intrigued by the petite woman
sitting silently next to him. Something seemed familiar about her. Was it her
short curly hair or the glassy stare or was it the rhythmic finger tapping? He could
not quite place her and settled for the possibility that they might have shared
a cab together at some point in time. He unlocked his mobile phone and
habitually looked at photos of the family he once had. How he regretted leaving
the only thing worth living for! After 25 years, to think of getting in touch
with his ex-wife and a glimpse of his only daughter both scared and pained him.
The woman looked at her watch and estimated it
would take another half hour to reach home. She had left office relieved to be
finally away from the job she hated. Ironically, she had nothing to look forward
to at home either. Many years ago, she questioned her parents’ divorce on the
sole fact that her father’s sexual orientation was different. Now she was not
sure which way her thoughts were swinging. As a child, she bore the resentment
that she had to be a part of that decision but growing up she realized it was
for the best. She lightly touched her chain and felt her mother’s wedding ring,
worn as a pendant. She always wondered why her mother still held on to it.
The cab driver looked into the rear view mirror
and observed the two passengers. He was used to passengers sitting silently in
his cab and this made driving peaceful for him. The elderly gentleman and the
young woman did not seem to know each other. However, the way they kept
glancing at each other contemplatively made it seem that they were once acquainted. Amused, he looked at their names and wondered if asking a clichéd question would
seem foolish.
It would be an unlikely possibility as a cab
driver to meet the same passengers together again. He broke the silence and asked,
“Do you both know each other? You’ll share the same last name – Martin”
The passengers looked at each other for the
first time in the cab ride and ridiculed the cab driver. Just as they tore away
their glances, the woman noticed a familiar photo on the man’s phone and the
man spotted a familiar ring on the woman’s neck.
