The Concubine's Cabaret

It was in general always late at night when I use to travel from Luckhisarai to my home at Varanasi. It was a dark bleaky december night and the train was traversing the station of Dighwara when I remember a group of teenagers merely in their late nineteens eloped to the compartment of the train. I was better to be to be told furious at the first sight of them because of their hustle and pandemonium created amidst of the night. It was merely half past ten in the night and almost every other contemporaries were retired to their respective bearths. The hooligans then started randomly adjusting their luggage and hurling over others seats. One of my fellow passengers said me 

- "So jayiye ji yeh sab nachaniyaye hain.. Inpe zyaada dhyaan mat dijiye."

 I then truly ignoring the fact of their presence tried hard to concentrate on my sleep which too was unfaithful to me as I was diagnosed of Insomnia a couple of months before, it was really very irritating to me to see others dreaming their hearts out where as I was caught between the baffle of the mortal hooligans screaming and the purgatorial gatekeepers of sleep pushing me out with their trident. The train swirled at a pace of unstoppable will, and the small stations left behind seemed like lost travellers waiting for a prometheus to show them way. It was during three thirty at night and the group of hooligans seemed to have finally rested. I as of struggling to make sleep lastly got out to the doors and stood to for some air. I heard the toilet of the ladies latched open with the sound of a jolt. I then saw a girl stepped out from the sillhoutte towards me. At first I was unaware of her, then the very following moment the moonlight pierced the darkness of the surroundings kissed her visage. The sight was truly pleasing to my eyes. She broke the silence with her tender voice saying 

"Kaun?",

 I didn't replied, she saw me then and asked me of my whereabouts and what I was solely at a first place doing there? I said my conditions and the word Insomnia somewhere connected and proved to be pivotal towards our mutual common standpoint. As time passed by and we conversed it seemed something pulled me more to her with every word. She enjoyed my company too as of I remembered. Her giggles her hairs and her eyes dilapidated with her big irises gathering my sight as like she was having me with all she had, and it was hinting me like for one last time we were connected through our souls. I didn't knew her before but the atmosphere in which we were present was so analogous that it had established a relationship which felt like an age old thread. I was practically knaive in asking her name for one moment for which 

she replied "Tillottama",

 I exclaimed her name's trueness and she said back that it was what they call her. 

I parted "Who?"  

To which she replied " The Clients I please"

To my utter dystopia it was not what I thought her to be, I was shocked and for the first time in the whole conversation I heard the horns of the train broke the silence of the night it felt like all my senses which was then conjured came back to life I asked her

- " Are you a prostitute"

She at first felt really ashamed of the fact I too without thinking her standpoint judged her character on  the basis of her work to gather her livelihood.

she replied numbly - "No a concubine".

I asked "You mean mistress? to whom?"

Then without any further ado she jolted down the corridor inside the darkness. The last thing I felt was drop of tear over my hand which for sure was her's.

The train came to Chappra Junction as I galloped down the staircase and made my way to a tea stall. This was all I needed at that point of time as the episodes of her phantom beauty haunted me. Her black silkwoven hairs loosed to loiter all over her shouders, her eyes full of eloquent darkness that would beguile anyone to their dreams. I was ready once again to live with her into my dreams where none of this happened where everything felt like I wanted it to be but now it was all shattered and far fetched, maybe I was orthodox on judging her maybe a chauvinist and may I have to burn in hell for the wrath I ushered on her. After a while I was all relieved  by the tea and hovered to my compartment in search for her, but it seemed to me like millions to cross for one in the darkness so I waited for the morning to apologise. Night passed and I slept unaware of the fact that what time it was but to my mere luck my station was yet to come. I came down of my bearth and started searching her and to my blasphemy I didn't found here.

It has been months now that I have encountered the incident and what happened yesterday has brought me down to tell you the story. Yesterday while my household chores I found out the backpack which I didn't unpacked and when I opened it I saw a letter in it which goes..

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Dear You,

               I don't know what to call you in this birth but what was left from the previous needed to be reconciled. I know that you while reading this may find foolish but I wanted to tell you that you still look the same as you were before that handsome and caring, maybe I was always a mismatch to your aura. That day when I saw you while I came with my troop I knew it was you. I knew that my visions was true that the guy the incident and the alliterated dreams meant something. I for your standards still is a concubine and a drab maybe. But I loved you an still love you and maybe will love you everytime we reincarnate I guess. Maybe it's all just a goof for you nevermind.. 

- But do you remember the Cabaret?

                                                                                     Lovingly Yours 

                                                                                         Radhika  

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The tears ran through my eyes of what the letter told me. Maybe God didn't thought me of her worthy maybe it was all meant to be. Maybe and so many more, but one thing I could live through out my life with is that night. I guess love is barrier free and doesn't holds to any law. Whatever it has been the question of the cabaret still haunts me.