I breathed in a lot of air, before getting in.

I hated travelling by trains.
Specially, air conditioned chair cars.

The fact was, I hated trains as a whole.
They looked like serpents to me. Hideous.

And, it wasn't so, that the distance I was supposed to travel, didn't have flight connections. It, rather, was the fact, that my husband found trains safer. He believed, I could not manage the hi-fi security checks and prodecures down the airport while travelling alone.

I wouldn't deny either.

When my husband would be with me, I'd be like, I ain't even informed about what all was going on around in the airport.

I'd just follow him blindly, he did every proceeding that was needed.
Basically, the perks of being a casual individual. I mostly lost track, staring elsewhere, or thinking about things.

Hence he felt, I couldn't handle the boarding process. Trains were the easiest for me.

Tucking the only stroller I had in the overhead storage space, I settled on my seat. It's a window seat, three chairs in a row, and this particular row marked the middle of the compartment, a table in front, and the other three chairs, on the opposite, facing me. Which meant, the passenger in front, would have a 'face to face' contact with me.
I didn't like the idea much.

Because, basically, I might look like a casual person, but I ain't so, in most of the other cases. I could not initiate conversations, did not like strangers, got severely anxious out of unnecessary situations, did not look straight into eyes... many a times....

And all these, my therapist said, were due to my long standing clinical depression. Even, the fact that I was oblivious to certain things happening around, owed to this very fact. And I didn't like taking meds regularly. Also, I didn't attend therapies on time, for example I hadn't met my sweet therapist for three long months now, hence missing eight counceilling sessions.

By the way, this is Radhika Mukherjee. A writer.

Yeah, a writer who earned nothing. Just wrote. In diaries, on blogs, on social media platforms...

Because, she had got no other way to vent the tornadoes that rose in her mind every now and then.

My husband's a corporate. It had been an arranged marriage, he's caring towards me, yeah, genuinely, because, he found me extremely beautiful. And he considered me an asset. But I knew he couldn't love me ever, though he wished to, since we got hitched.

Because.... I would never love him, and love ain't a one way traffic.

The train was cooing, and I was staring outside the glass window. Earlier, AC coaches had frosted windows. Now they had clear ones. Thank god.
Though the chairs around me were empty now, god forbid, if someone came and sat right before me, I'd have to constantly look outside, or at the magazine I had brought along because I found nothing at hand when I left for the station.

Movements happening somewhere nearby, signalled me that someone was settling on the chair right before me. I was still staring outside, and the train had started moving. I always found it weird, when I couldn't decide, if it was the platform that moved, or the train.

The person, whoever it was, had seated after placing the luggages overhead. And...mostly was staring at me now.

Like... really? I stiffened. And grabbed the curtains of the window, concentrating outside, as the train paced up.

" Radhika? "

No. I did not hear that.

Was I hallucinating?
Because I had had such episodes long back.
However, though I didn't take regular meds, I had healed anyway, a bit, over the last five years.

At least, I thought so....

I decided not to respond. I didn't want to come out looking like a fool to the other passengers scattered here and there, or even before me, if someone wasn't really calling my name.

But the voice.........

" Is that you... Radhika? "

My brains might be hallucinating, but my heart led me to shift my gaze immediately. From outside, to the person before me.

And I freezed.

No, I felt like I was being crucified to the seat I was sitting on.

My walking talking clinical depression.....sat before me.

Yes, still the same. Five long years, and how did a man not change a tinge bit? The same set of brown eyes, the same soft smile, and the same old ruffled hair......

I understood, I was growing anxious.
Very, very anxious.
I needed water, at the very moment. But I was crucified at the same time. I could not move.

He smiled wider...

" Don't you recognize me? Have I changed way too much? "

How was he talking so promptly?
How even?
Was he for real? Had I finally gone completely insane that I was hallucinating his presence, in his very absence?

Because, if he were really existent here, right now, he should know, extremely well, in all possibilities, that.....

I....... I...... I hated him.....

I.... Just...

He had fixed his gaze upon me. And I was staring back... with the dumbest possible expression on earth.

" You haven't changed a drop, Mr Keshav Sekhar Chakravarty. "

Something else spoke from my insides, for me. Thanks to it, because I was not in a position to vocalise myself.

" 5 years ain't eternity.
Neither have you, Radhika.... "

" Mrs Radhika Mukherjee. " , thanks to my irregular meds and a number of therapies, I was still alive and awake and even coherent, before the man who had caused my doom, five years back.

He settled back. The train was racing, I suddenly realised. And however much I wanted to look outside, I couldn't. I felt like an iron boulder, and his eyes, huge magnets.

He crossed his long legs. Just as he used to do......

" Congratulations.
To Mr Mukherjee.
He owned Radhika. " , he kept smiling.

For the first time, I broke the eyelock. And immediately grabbed the water bottle hanging beside me, gulping in almost a litre at a go.

He had settled his chin on the palm, and the elbow on the handle of the chair, while still staring, and his face emitting a smile.

" You have only grown more beautiful, Radhikey!! "

Patients of clinical depression... had a huge problem. My therapist had assured me, it would heal, but it would take time.

They could not control tears.

So couldn't I.

Suddenly, terribly, beads, followed by streams, started hurrying down my eyes.... Like an impending flood.

Shit!!! Shit!!!! I jumped up and ran towards the lavatory end, rocketing myself out of the coach, into the little space outside that marked the connection to the next coach.

The huge doors open on either side of the space, made me realise, it was raining outside, and my insides, even heavier...

I rested my body against the wall, staring outside the door. The streams still flowed, but the rains soothed my heart, along with the metallic sounds of the engines.

I realised, a long moment later, he too had followed suit, and was leaning against the wall on my sides, one of his legs supported against it, the other fixed on the ground...

What should I be doing now? Play a 'catch me if you can game' with the person I.......'hated' the most?

Hated..... Was it?

Could Radha ever hate her Krishna?
However much, he walked away, leaving her behind, without looking back... even for once?

I slowly turned my head to him. He was looking away, at the rains outside.

" Did you find your........mother? " , I asked, gathering the last possible strength in my body.

Keshav turned his head. The soft glow, still highlighting his features.
He nodded a yes.

" I did, Radhika....

She was......in an asylum....

In Lucknow.

I searched for three longs years, devouring each and every nook and cranny of North India..

Just when, I was....about to give up... I found her... "

My breath fastened.
The gust of misty winds, the detoured rains, nothing helped the lungs of mine that were choking.

" Where is.....she now......? "

" With me. Of course...

She doesn't know who I'm. She knows nothing. She might just know, she's got a home, and that.....there's a person who takes care of her needs.. "

Keshav's voice choked. And he never let anyone realise that, he would just cough and pretend his throat was mucous filled.

But, I knew everything....
Literally, even crease of his self...

Yet, he had abandoned me.
Completely.

I still remember the day......he got to know....he was picked up by Rohitash Uncle and Sunidhi aunty, from an orphanage, as an kid. That was... exactly 5 years and a month back.

He had come to our place, woken me up at two in the night.
He looked unusually calm though, when he said he had discovered his adoption certificate from an old trunk...
And that, Rohitash Uncle had confessed the truth upon confronting.

Rohitash Uncle was devastated, much more than Keshav was....
Basically the later was so quiet a human, that he sheltered the entire tornado within himself.

Rohitash Uncle knew his mother's name, just the name, and the fact, that she was a lunatic, somewhere in Uttar or Himachal Pradesh. However, he knew no whereabouts of his biological father.

I was numbed. Completely. I did not know how I was supposed to handle a situation that was so terribly unnerving. Brought up as a single, pampered child, life had never shown me its frightening, hideous, monstrous sides. I had never known how it was to lose....something....or.....someone....or even, faith...

I only knew, I loved him, madly, badly, and... I believed he too did the same.. to me.

The last nail on the coffin was Rohitash Uncle's sudden demise through a cerebral attack, within a month. The man had already lost a wife, and he somehow felt he was on the verge of losing a son too, very soon. He could not take the shock.

Following which, the morning arrived, that turned my world upside down. It didn't arrive alone, but with a letter. The letter, that's still locked in the drawer, beside my bed, my husband was not allowed to touch...

' I leave, Radhikey!

I can't ask for forgiveness. I don't have the right to. Just know, I'm breaking into as many pieces as you are.

But, trust me, the journey to the root is a tough one. My life ahead, will be one filled with immense struggles. I know you would readily accompany me, but trust me, travelling through the bumpy paths, just for me, would slowly wear out the love you have in your heart. You aren't used to walking on stones, to having your feet bleed...
I cannot afford to see you do that, for my sake....

Just know, I'll love you, till the last breath.

Adios.

Hate me, cry for me, but one day, you'll realise, I just saved you from ruining your life.

Mythologically, ultimately, never destined to be yours,

Keshav. '

The rains had stopped.

Yet, we stood, facing each other, leaning against the walls, staring outside...

My head was hurting. But, my insides weren't anxious anymore.
My therapist had once said, if I could identify the cause of my depression, and face it with utmost strength, I'd feel better.
My problem was not the former, I knew the cause, but I had given up on every possibility of ever being able to face the cause, in this life again...

" What were you in Bhubaneshwar for? " , he broke the silence.

" Been to my aunt's place. Just a visit. ", I wanted to sound normal, unaffected.
" And you? "

" I stay here, in company quarters.
I work at an advertising agency. Heading to Cuttack for a meeting.. For half a day. I cannot leave maa behind with a servant for long.

And you, heading home, back to Kolkata, right? " , he smiled faintly.

" It was your home too....... "
I didn't know why, I suddenly blurted that out. I was supposed to speak nothing.... that could reveal my depressed self even more naked. Already I had cried, and he had known...

" Hmmm....

It was.

But these five years have turned me into a complete vagabond. The word 'home' has lost all its significance to me....

I have seen life at its worst, you won't even imagine what..... " , he stopped.

But I kept staring.

My insides suddenly churned, everything went upside down in an instant.

" Remember you had said, I would thank you for not ruining my life....
You didn't mention though, what punishment you're supposed to receive, if you actually ruined my life in the process.

Which is what you did, Mr Keshav Chakravarty!

You went in search of your lunatic mother, and I turned a lunatic in the process. I'm a bloody patient of severe manic depressive disorder for the last five years!! My husband, who has turned my husband just a year back, doesn't know I am on meds, that I visit a therapist, because my parents had to hide, that their daughter is insane.......in love!!!!!!

You turned homeless.....so did I...

Unlike you though, I do have my husband's home to my name..

But not always, 'home' is four walls stuck together...

Sometimes, 'home' is a man...!!!

And for me..... It has always been you, bloody..... You........ !!!

And the fact is, I can't even hate you for ruining me....completely.... "

I was screaming. And all he did was, suddenly pull me into his arms. I gave in, sobbing, breaking into fragments, in the proximity of his beating heart..

I realised, my life was a lie for the five long years, and he was the only truth....

I stayed in that position for an eternity after this. At the end of which, he spoke in his baritone,

" Next station is Cuttack. I'll get down.

You have two options, Radhikey!

Either, head over to the home that has your name in its papers...

Or get down with the person that has been your home.....

I had judged you so wrong!!
You can travel every uneven path with me, and I've got absolutely no right to banish you from the 'home' ... that was ours......

I can compensate, with my life...

It's your time to decide now, Radhika!

If you can forgive your Krishna...
If you can leave behind every social ties....
If you can.. finally... stop being homeless....forever..

Because, I can handle two lunatics. I'd be the happiest to. "

His aching smile bored through my heart.

Though, I wished to run out of his grip right now, though my brain instructed me to leave this 'home' immediately, without looking back.....

But.....

An hour later, I found myself following the man in a blue jacket, right in front of me, in the busy station of Cuttack.

He looked back at me, as I pulled my stroller along, with a heavenly smile..

My heart... had began beating... after five long years.

A phone was vibrating somewhere.
Yes, in the right pocket of my jeans.

Keshav walked over to the auto stand, and I looked at the screen.

' Mr Mukherjee Calling..... '

A huge sigh escaped my heart.
A sigh, of ultimate homecoming.

I switched my phone off, and threw the 35k priced silver bodied artificial intelligence device....

....into the station dustbin.

Keshav beckoned me.
I tiptoed towards him. He got up the auto, and softly pulled me along.
I settled, and looked into his deep brown eyes.

Radhika, was finally home.