I see the queue for auto everyday while going to office. I watch the people getting impatient looking at their watch again and again. I observe a vagabond slowly comes near the queue, reluctantly sits by the roadside wearing a dirty t-shirt where written “No past, no future, I live in present”.
Observing is a good habit as long as you don’t allow the tiny little things you observe to affect you. Now, the man by the roadside affected me somehow. I questioned myself then and there what am I running after? What am I waiting for? What am I worried about? While all these make noise louder in my mind, I get an auto and thank almighty for the immense patience he gave me to stand forty five minutes in the long queue.
Finishing the first lap of my journey, I get down at a stoppage where I need to walk through the subway. There I meet a mother. The mother who was not really prepared to be one. The mother who even hardly had any idea about pregnancy, child birth or motherhood. In one horrible night, someone left his mark in her womb and vanished. She gave birth to a girl child first and now again, ‘blessed’ with a boy. The girl is now five years, old enough to beg and bring food for the mother and the boy. I have never seen the mother begging. She is always busy playing with the children. What she says, nobody understands, but all I can see they are happy in their tiny world, i.e at the subway entrance.
There comes the third lap when I start walking towards my office through a bazaar. People shouting in top of their voice to sell and buy. Sellers convincing the buyers and vice versa. People pushing each other, jostling to go ahead, running after over crowded bus, shouting for change, passing nasty comments. Till that time, I already got late. I start panting, and running. I need to complete the deadlines, finish the tasks. I run after the speedily moving crowded bus, give the exact fare in change to the conductor which I have saved for this last but crucial lap and shout loud when my stoppage comes and become one of them. One of the crowd. Getting down at the stoppage, taking a deep breath when I enter into the office I observe an old man reading newspaper sitting in front of his broken shop. He looks calm, peaceful, content. I remember the t-shirt quote of that vagabond. And I ask myself, “What am I running after? What am I waiting for? What am I worried about?”
