The Woman in the Blue Dress
Sometimes a stranger doesn’t change your life; she reminds you of the life you’ve been too afraid to live.
Prologue — Platform Nine
On an ordinary Wednesday in June, I missed my usual 8:03 a.m. train from Ballygunge to Sealdah. A stalled autorickshaw, a burst of monsoon drizzle, and a pigeon that refused to budge from the middle of the pavement conspired against punctuality. I sprinted up the station stairs, lungs burning, just in time to watch the familiar yellow coaches pull away like a taunting mirage.
As the last carriage disappeared, I noticed her—the woman in the blue dress. She stood near a peeling timetable, sleeves fluttering like silk flags in the humid breeze. There was something anachronistic about her: a vintage cobalt-blue tea dress cinched at the waist, a straw cloche tilted over espresso-brown curls, and a small leather satchel hugging one shoulder. She looked less like a commuter and more like a time-traveler who had slipped through a tear in Bengal’s calendar.
Part I — The Unspoken Question
Trains in Kolkata run every ten minutes, yet each minute felt elastic as I waited on the platform beside her. She offered me a polite half-smile, the kind people reserve for harmless strangers or lost tourists. Emboldened, I blurted the first thing that sprang to mind.
“You missed it too?” I asked, nodding toward the empty tracks.
“I suppose I did,” she replied, voice warm as monsoon chai. “Sometimes we need to miss the first train. Gives the heart time to catch up.”
It was such an unexpected answer that I chuckled. She didn’t look away; her amber eyes held mine with gentle curiosity.
“Do hearts really need timetables?” I ventured.
“Only when they’ve been running ahead of us for too long,” she said. “Yours looks breathless.”
There was no judgment in her tone, only observation. I brushed rain-specked hair from my forehead, suddenly aware of my rumpled shirt and sagging messenger bag—evidence of a life spent chasing deadlines.
Part II — Two Stops, Infinite Detours
The 8:13 screeched into the station, doors sliding open like a polite yawn. We boarded the same compartment, standing opposite one another amid the subdued chaos of phone screens and newspaper fold-outs. Despite the crowd, an invisible thread linked us: two accidental travelers sharing a detour.
When the train lurched, she steadied herself with a gloved hand against the doorframe—another period flourish that didn’t match the era or the sticky carriage air. I noticed embroidery along the dress hem: tiny blue sparrows chasing one another in flight.
“Did you sew those yourself?” I asked, the question leaping out before self-consciousness could stop it.
“Yes,” she said. “It helps me remember that movement can be beautiful even when you’re stuck in one place.”
The train clattered over a bridge. Below, monsoon-swollen canals glimmered like tarnished mirrors. My phone vibrated—a calendar alert for a presentation I hadn’t finished—but I ignored it, captured by a stranger’s philosophy of locomotion.
Part III — The Invitation
At Park Circus, half the carriage disembarked. The woman in blue remained while I inched closer, buoyed by a sense of reckless permission.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“Somewhere I’ve never been,” she answered. “You?”
The honest reply—an office cubicle that smells like fluorescent regret—wedged in my throat. Instead I said, “I don’t know yet.”
She tilted her head, studying me as if weighing possibilities. Then the most astonishing thing happened: she slipped a small ticket stub from her satchel and pressed it into my palm. It was an old theatre ticket dated 15 July 1963, row B, seat 12, faded edges soft as whispers.
“Keep it,” she said. “Proof that not every detour expires.”
Part IV — Echoes at Sealdah
We reached Sealdah within minutes, yet those minutes felt elastic again—a pocket of time where the mundane and the miraculous overlapped. She stepped onto the platform first. I followed, ticket stub trembling between my fingers.
“Walk with me?” she asked.
My inbox howled in neglected protest. I silenced it with airplane mode. Umbrellas bloomed like black orchids as rain strengthened. She didn’t open one. Instead she lifted her chin and let droplets bead on her lashes like tiny crystal ornaments.
“You’ll ruin your dress,” I warned.
“It’s already lived a hundred stories,” she said, laughing. “Another rain chapter won’t hurt.”
Part V — The Bookstore That Shouldn’t Exist
Past the rickshaw queues and incense-smoked tea stalls, she led me into a narrow alley I’d never noticed despite years of commuting. At the end stood a dim little bookstore with a wooden sign that read “Chapter & Verse, Est. 1927.” Through dusty windows, amber light flickered like fireflies in jars.
Inside, the air smelled of sandalwood and old paper. Books climbed the walls in precarious towers. A gray cat dozed on the till, unfazed by customers or time. The woman in blue navigated the labyrinth with practiced ease.
“Pick a book,” she said. “One you’ve never heard of but feels like it’s been waiting for you.”
I wandered past travelogues, poetry, atlases of extinct constellations. Finally my hand landed on a slim volume titled “Maps for the Compass-Less”. The cover showed a paper boat sailing across a fingerprint.
She approved with a nod. “Perfect. Now write your name inside the front cover and the day’s date.”
“Why?”
“Because the story begins again each time a new reader signs. Someday someone will open that book, see your name, and wonder who you were and what trains you missed.”
Part VI — The Missing Ending
We left the shop with two books—mine and hers, a dog-eared collection of Rainer Maria Rilke letters—and walked toward College Street Coffee House. Raindrops played tabla on corrugated roofs. Conversation flowed the way monsoon water finds gutters: effortlessly, inevitably. I told her about my marketing job, the spreadsheet shackles, the half-written novel sleeping on my hard drive. She spoke of tailoring, stargazing, and collecting stories the way children collect marbles.
At the café, we split a plate of kasha mangsho and giant bread rolls. She dipped bread into gravy with delicate fingers, as if each bite were a ritual of gratitude. People around us blurred into watercolor; time smelled of ground coffee and wet earth.
“What will you do tomorrow?” she asked.
My reflex said, catch the 8:03. But another voice—one that sounded newly hatched—answered, “Book a later train. Finish the novel. Maybe sew a sparrow on my backpack.”
Her smile unfurled like a parasol. Outside, rain eased into a soft hush.
Part VII — Vanishing Point
We walked back to Sealdah for evening trains. Platform lights flickered on, halos in rising mist. My train to Ballygunge wheezed to a stop. We stood near opposite doors.
“Thank you for the detour,” I said.
“Detours are where the real maps hide,” she replied. “Keep that ticket stub. It’s a key.”
“Key to what?”
“To the door you thought was locked.”
The whistle blew. I stepped inside. She remained on the platform, blue dress vivid against rusty rails. As the train pulled out, she raised a gloved hand in farewell. I pressed my palm to the glass, ticket stub tucked beneath fingertips.
I blinked, and she was gone—a flicker between passengers, swallowed by evening haze. Or perhaps she had never been there, a trick of rain-washed light and wishful minds. Yet in my pocket, the 1963 theatre ticket pulsed like a second heartbeat.
Epilogue — The Second Train
At home, I opened Maps for the Compass-Less. On the title page, beneath my hastily inked name, I found another inscription—elegant, navy-blue cursive I had not written:
Dear Traveler,
The world is wider than timetables.
If you ever feel lost, follow the sparrows.
— L, The Woman in the Blue Dress
That night I mapped the novel’s final chapter beneath a yellow desk lamp. At sunrise I stitched a tiny sparrow onto my canvas backpack. The 8:03 departed without me, and for the first time in seven years, I didn’t chase it.
Written by: LikeTvBangla Fiction Desk • Approx. 1,960 words
