M & B

This morning, at 8:20, TheWorkingWife sits opposite me in the train. She wears a navy blue kameez and sandal salwar, a chiffon sandal dupatta cradling her neck along with the black beaded mangal-sutra. Kumkum on the forehead, dark lipstick, hurried makeup, the round plump countenance, and physical features disappearing into folds of skin, suggest that she is a comfortable wife, to whom wedding anniversies and birthdays have taken back seat to her children's homework of the evening and the night's dinner menu. She carries a small handbag that hugs her arms, and a huge plastic bag, with McDonald's written in bright red font, a souvenir of a Sunday evening out with her children perhaps, that crackles with every movement of her hand.

After pausing to catch her breath, she pulls out a purple coloured paperback from the McDonald's bag. My attention is caught by her hesitating fingers, palms carefully closing the front cover. I strain to see what book it is. I can make out the words 'Romance' in maroon, bordering the cover. I decide that the workings of her face as she reads the book, are infinitely more interesting than "How Intel Got Inside China" that I am reading. I sit back and watch her. I spot a smile on the corner of her lips as she reads the book, her palms still covering the picture on the front cover. Her head comes up from the lines, in regular intervals, and she glances around slowly, under the pretext of taking a break from serious reading. Our eyes meet and she smiles hesitatingly. Have I seen the picture in the front covers? I smile and nod, as though I haven't even noticed the book in her hands. She goes back to her pages, satisfied. Stations pass. I look out of the window now and then.
TheWorkingWife's friend gets in at one station. She sits in the empty seat beside her. She is curious to see what her friend is reading. TheWorkingWife, hesitates, and stealthily shows her the book, blushing all the while. The friend, gasps and closes her open mouth in a gesture of mock surprise. "Mills' & Boons'? Arey...! Dikhao Dikhao..." [Show me] Their eyes twinkle. Suddenly they are like two teenage girls giggling over some secret crush. TheWorkingWife explains, blushing all the while, that she got the book from the library and that this was the only M & B she could take home because the picture was relatively decent. "Otherwise what would Banti think? My husband will be furious, you know?" she quips. Banti, her eight year old son, she continues, is doing very well in school. "He can read english very fluently. I have to be careful. These are not suitable for children... I just read these for time pass, you know?" She slowly reveals the cover of the book to her friend. A tall, dark and handsome man and a lithe woman in a blissful embrace. "Atleast they are not kissing. In most of the covers, the man and woman kiss!Sheeesh!" Their conversation continues along the lines of the degradation of the Indian culture and the remix videos that parade satellite television. "Nowadays I cannot even switch on the TV in front of Banti. How innocent we were those days! Nowadays children know everything. Scary!!"
My station arrives and I alight leaving TheWorkingWife, Mills' & Boons' and Banti behind...