The Woman Who Swore

        I was on my way back from Chennai after a rather hectic, two day trip. Most part of the two days, saw me running around the countryside with a blue file, whilst my Mom watched movies at Satyam, munching fries and popcorn. I used to give her a glare every time I saw her and she smiled patronizingly. It made it all the more worse. I was more than glad when the mini vacation for my Mom got over and we were on a train, bundled for Coimbatore.
        Everything was fine, until we reached Arakkonam. I was trying to look past the cranky, old woman seated next to me, at the hawkers for a cup of coffee when a whiff of jasmine caught my nostrils. I turned 180 degrees in reflex and saw an apparition in white. A red arrow poked into my chest and a plane crashed in East Australia. She got into the train and looked around the compartment, searching for something. I was desperately praying. She glided forward, swinging her duffel bag and came to a stop in front of me. And then she sat. I started blushing profusely. My Mom was going over her with a critical eye, ever-protective of her vulnerable son and clutched my arm. The old woman was muttering something about the kind of women that women give birth to nowadays and proceeded to damage the apparition's entire lineage.
        I was stone-deaf and bat-blind to all these so-called negative, ultrasonic waves of personal emotion that flowed around me. My target was fixed and I was preparing myself for the fight. I felt like Rocky in Rocky - IV. It was survival. It was endurance. And I had both of them by the barrels. I flexed my eyebrows and crunched my jaws. A bit rusty but in perfect, working condition, I thought. It was my weapon. The same weapon which I used to woo multiple females looking like both sides of Naomi Campbell. The same weapon with which I defeated my current girlfriend. It was my Look.
        The Look is one of its kind. It has never been unsuccessful (except on two occasions, when the recipients turned out to be members of the some, unidentifiable sex/species). And it can never be replicated. It is unique. And I was ready with it; armed to the teeth.
        Seconds before I gave the Look, something happened that made me realize that if ever I was going to cheat on my girlfriend again, I would rather hang myself from the Golden Gate bridge, before doing it. As I looked at the apparition, she slowly lifted her golden face from the Kumudham which she was reading and brushed away a strand of hair. My heart skipped a beat. She then stretched, her waist straining at her churidhar and proceeded to pull down the shutters on the windows.

Interlude:
        Now some background information is needed, before we reach the ending of my shortest flirt. Old women are supposed to be inherently sweet. But this woman, the one sitting on my left, apparently was not. She looked and behaved like the wife of the caretaker of hell. She nonchalantly put her rheumatic legs on top of mine; shouted loudly at hawkers and beggars in some foreign language, that mysteriously sounded like a mix of Tamil and Sudanese; made angry gestures at a blind beggar and spilt my precious cutlet and vadai all over my clean, white trousers; burped loudly and disgustingly; and smelt seemingly of paan and old, dried fish.

        Coming back, at the exact second Miss White was trying to pull down the shutters, the old woman suddenly seemed to have felt the irresistible urge to empty her constantly, masticating mouth and did so promptly. Right onto Miss White's butt, which was blocking the window. Whether the act was intentional or otherwise, no one came to know. The red splotch was visible for a second, after which it started soaking and got bigger and bigger. Time stood still, during when my Eco sir popped into my brain for no apparent reason, made a rude movement with a finger and scuttled off, as fast as he had come. Miss White turned back, gave one look and screamed. She did not scream like they do in B-grade horror movies, say for example Darling or Aag; she screamed along with the ugliest swear word I have ever heard in my life. I closed my Mom's ears and she closed mine. I was horrified and instantly totally repelled. My ideas changed.
        And at that same exact second, my actual girlfriend materialized and she smiled knowingly. I mouthed, "I'm sorry". The vision smilingly vanished. And I turned my attention to another apparition in blue, who had just entered the compartment. My eyebrows are not going to be betrayed.