Today. Yet another day, at the end of which my brain is reluctant
to think. It’s more tiring to have a tired mind, than a tired body.
This
place. I have been here before, endless number of times. But its not mine.
I stand at the edge. Do I belong here?
People. They keep running and running,
trying to reach goals set by others, trying to conquer more than others, trying
to prove something very irrelevant. It’s a race, where you don’t lose, but
people make you feel you did, not by telling you so, but by reminding you of
their triumph. But a part of me knows something is missing. My surroundings are
empty, thoughtless and hence, powerless.
I should get down from the bus and
walk the rest of the distance. No, I am too exhausted for it. But I should. So
I hear myself yelling “I had to get down.” The driver unwillingly stops, my
co-passengers glare at me and the conductor giggles at my back. Is this one of
the decisions I was going to regret? It’s a pitiable thing to think so much
about such a small happening, but my brain keeps on going back to all the
faces, my limbs make me regret what I just did. But I needed it more than it
was wanted. I start walking, without any realization, I leave the park behind,
and my mind wanders off to the summers when I thought tooth fairy was real. All
the memories I have are those from the frame of ‘outside the gate’. Did I never
go inside to play? Or were they just too impolite to remember? At that time, it
was just laziness, but now, I realize maybe it was more than my body’s
reluctance to join the other kids. Maybe it was my mind’s.
Repeated trips to the hospital makes any being
more fragile than he was before. Though, I am no one to blame these health
factories, I can relate to their psychological setbacks. “But I am more than
that. I don’t state the hospitals as the reason of my lack of motivation. Only
the guilt of my mistakes can make me prosper. Like those kids there-” as I
wandered out and back into my subconscious, I merely saw a bunch of teenagers
terrorizing a little pup. Will some of them regret this act? God, I hope they
do. Though, I know how they feel; how they are frustrated, confused, like
everyone is, more or less, at the time of learning something new.
Then these are youngsters, trying to learn the
most complex mathematics of all: life. Though I am no one to know them, but
still, it is not just right to show their dominance over an innocent creature
to prove to the world that you are unafraid. Rather, it’s just the work of a
coward. But they’ll learn for themselves. Some will wait for big happenings;
others will be inhibited by smaller ones. Some days they’ll discover
themselves; others, they’ll invent. Some will invite troubles to themselves;
others might run away; sooner than later, they’ll know; hard way or otherwise
that little things matter.
Hypothesis of a biologist would suggest I am completely aware of
my limbs, moving forward, like trying to win, against each other, a motion in
vain. But all I feel right now is my blood thumping through my ears. Was I
running out of breath?
I see a smile of an old man sitting in Mr.
Oliver’s window side seat, and it makes me wonder do I have to wait till the
last chapter? No. Every happy chapter begins with a smile, and the sad ones end
with a smile!
I see a vagabond, and I see a
woman sitting on her bedroom window. For one, her house is a prison, for the
other, the world outside the house. For any prisoner, their prison is the
safest place they know. Scared to be outside, crouching at the thought of being
left free; but the spark of not being where you are, overpowers the importance
of now and here.
Sometimes, life is plain,
mundane, redundant, but that time, is the most useful time. It’s the
intermission of a movie, where you have seen the movie, and, yet, are eager for
more. It’s the comma in the sentence, where you still have sentence left for
reading, yet, understand the first half. It’s the time to learn, the time to
format, to dispose off useless stuff, to be excited for more.
Like the walk I had; the void which I filled
with memories and judgments. Now, I am not regretting my decision of getting
off the bus. Aching more than before, I reached the stairs to my apartment.
Today. I travelled more than I walked; but am
still shrugging at the expressions of the fellow bus passengers.
-Sanjana Wadhwa,
Computer Science,
2nd year
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