A CALL SOONER THAN LATER………..

Trying desperately for my turn in the lift… gulping the last pieces forced into my mouth as breakfast…spilling half of the milk down my throat…I run to the bus stop….and every time like an idiot, I find myself early by around 10 mins….and then try to cover the color that threatens to rise on my face when I see all those familiar eyes who know this story too well.….( all those who think I never learn , including me…I must say, know me too well :P)
And just as my clock snuggles to move over two minutes past 9, I unfailingly see this unbothered soul with face having more wrinkles than the breaks in the upturn road on which his stick struggles to keep him on his quivering legs, relearning his baby steps while coming to this bus stop everyday. And everyday he approaches me and asks me in his inaudible voice …..” 910 nikal gayi kya?” everyday he waits and boards this overloaded bus through my eyes and hands and goes to a place in CP where? What for? I don’t know.
All through my bus journey this man makes me ponder at the reasons back home that forces him to take this 910 everyday unfailingly weekday or weekend with drooping eyes and wallowing speech for a job at this humble age, when most of us imagine ourselves relaxing. I yearn to ask him but I stop. I feel like providing him with an auto, tell him I can afford but again I stop myself…for I can feel in his bones his strength - his self-respect, challenging me, daring me to offer him a help, challenging all of us to dare, feel sorry for this humble man.
This man makes my eyes see the unwanted truth I am so carelessly blinded to. A boy down the road selling a pirated “A monk who sold his Ferrari”, to this girl (whose eyes lack motherly affection) herself thrown so early into a motherhood, with a baby in her hand painting a sorry picture on a red light. He makes me see a life foreign to me. A life so very unknown to me, a life of a destitute, a life of a not so fortunate.
In that 1 sec he teaches me that life isn’t easy. It’s a struggle, a constant struggle. A struggle for survival and yet making me realize how very easy is this struggle for me as compared to a million others ( as of now at least). Without the need to have to think of whether I will have food for tomorrow or a bed to sleep on he makes me see a gamut of necessities for survival I have taken for granted… making me think of all those who live for a day. Making me realize how very fortunate I am.
His eyes haunt me every time I waste the food in my plate. Every time I
sleep in a cozy bed. Every time I ride my car and every time I wallow over petty things in life, laughing at me when I crib and making me hate my self for being so selfish and for being so thankless every time I find my self in the temple with a long wish list.
He makes me aware of the harsh realities we so uninterestingly sleep over, making me have a regular trip with my conscious. Forcing me to think how crude have I become in my life. Challenging me to stick to the roots my parents had instilled in me. Forcing me to be with less fortunate every Friday and making me relearn the reasons of existence which I have left some where in this journey of mine. Making me ask myself what is peace?


P.S. – For all those who are unhappy with themselves or for what life is giving them, just take a trip down to an old age or talk to a homeless…..you would be ashamed of yourself for even being bothered by those silly trivial nutties life gave you. Though one thing that still unsettles me is to find what I have in life I have to be given a constant reminder to my brain by those who don’t have as much as me……THE BIGGEST IRONY OF LIFE ISN’T IT?