‘How true,’ he said, hugging her.
‘You can’t separate love and anxiety in a woman’s heart,’ she said, tightening her grip on him.
‘That’s why love is painfully sweet,’ he kissed her tears, ‘and salty too.’
By the time they reached the Secunderabad Railway Station in the evening, Roopa began to see Raja Rao’s impending departure as a necessary evil to their forthcoming togetherness.
‘As you make love to her,’ she whispered to him in the din of the arriving train, ‘give my love to Sandhya.’
When the Godavari Express languidly pulled out of that railway station, gazing at him lovingly, she waved at him furiously. If only her sense of longing for her lover had acquired a physical dimension, probably the train, in spite of its diesel power, wouldn’t have moved an inch forward.