Jassi feels a touch as if something is softly rubbing against her trousers, stirring her to a quick response. She looks back over her shoulder. Her eyes meet a hazel-eyed young man right behind, winking at her. For a moment, she thinks herself to be a lioness crouched onto the railing of the seat in the front, and the guy is a lion shaking his long, shoulder-length mane, which is fluffing up and swaying in the incoming, miserly hot wind through the window. Averting her intensely focused, glinting eyes, she concentrates on settling a score with an insistent elbow poking at her ribs. It’s of a middle-aged woman standing next to her.
A while ago, Jassi boarded the bus and occupied a window seat. More of an ant’s crawl now—brushing and bumping into people—just like packed rohu in a fish container. She half regrets giving up her seat to an elderly lady.
Jassi reminds herself before she loses her mind over this encounter with a handsome, sexy man. She is off to the street market to shop for her fifteen-year-old daughter, who’ll turn sweet sixteen the day after. She fishes out a hundred bucks from her vanity bag, the only amount that she can afford to spend on her present. But her daughter craves a costly device to enjoy music while cycling, jogging, and doing yoga. It’s the month-end; she and her husband have to fix a leaky toilet pending for months and spend on meals for the next few days, apart from other usual expenditures.
Jassi smiles at the old woman, her face rufous from the recent physical interaction with the guy. She leans back, and her head reaches his chest. If she ever faints from the heat, she will certainly end up in his arms. The guy’s hot, sizzling breath on her neck makes her tingle, slightly off-kilter whimsy.
Skin-burning sighs at will rise up from sleep and spell of love entwined that’s deep and wild. She holds her breath and bolts her eyes, soaking in his charm, as his fingers climb slowly from her buttocks to her waist. She wonders when was the last time she was in such a rapturous form. Or is she living a life where love is gone? In a fit of trembling stillness, she imagines herself to be an adolescent girl first identifying a male touch.
Who says they don’t pay attention to older women? She is sweating as though she has just gotten rid of a high fever. She leans back, while his hand movement lingers. Assuming somewhat the posture of a snake twining over her body akin to a creeper spiraling around a support, they remain in that surreptitious position for a while. Unexpectedly, her eyes fall on the woman beside her, holding a quizzical expression, as if she knows what’s going on. For who can escape the treacherous world and its watchful gaze? Its insidious voice never quite allows her senses to deep-dive into the realm of pleasure.
Self-conscious with cheeks like that of blood-red tomatoes, Jassi tries to grab the handle dangling from the ceiling and trips as she makes her way forward to the door. When the bus halts, she gets down, walks on, ramrod straight, swearing never to look back again.
While on the road, she thinks she hears a confused clamor going on inside the bus, probably a scuffle with a male voice shouting, “My wallet!” The door slams, the engine revs up, and the bus vanishes.
Set at ease, Jassi opens her vanity bag. Inside is a bi-fold wallet stuffed with banknotes. Ten thousand bucks. Enough to buy a portable media player and her favorite sari. Where did the money come from? Some things are best kept secret. Her world is now a deep, dark harbour, except for the lights coming from a tawdry, bright shop drawing her in.