Monday 4 April 2011

The Song


It just took one verse of the song to make me wish that I could turn back time.

It was 9:15 by the clock on a usual Tuesday morning. The traffic was bad and the roads only went from bad to worse in the last 4 years. The cars...designed for a beautiful free world...followed one another like in an assembly line...driven by not so happy faces. Faces burdened by the worldly expectations and wants they have managed to acquire for themselves in a quest for happiness, success and power. 

As the light turned from Red to Green, the extremely sad face of the beggar, however, was suddenly telling a different story as he stepped aside to share a smoke and probably a joke with his fellow comrade. Was it because they were not out in the battlefield to achieve more than what they needed to stay alive? Unlike us? Confused...I decided to resist a strange urge to look into the rear view mirror to see if I looked burdened too. This was my adopted city…the city that housed the dream that I managed to dream 10 years back. Today I have everything that I could have asked for.

I played it one more time and then once again: Life was different…I guess simple. Yes, there were things which are better left buried in the sands of time…like Business Mathematics, Accounts, Economics and Love…but there was also a lot ignorance and innocence that made up for all that wasn’t there. So this heart was not worried about the consequences...it was free…freedom being another word of having nothing to lose. Probably the beggar was free…I thought…am I free? I don’t know…I don’t know how much I can win...but I sure know how much I can lose. I have a fear of losing. 

The beauty probably was embroidered in the simple designs of life…not the complex, yet soulless ones of today…the constant struggle for something better…the struggle that we have accepted as one more member of the family. The red cycle, the cricket field, the beer behind the forbidden liquor shop, the cup of tea in front of the college and the evening hangout…and a love which did not demand love in return…it was unconditional…it knew how to accept. Today I want what I love…I don’t want to lose because I have had a taste of victory…I feel I deserve what I want.

It was a bright sunny day and the song was playing on the headphones of my disc man as I cycled down to college…it was a song that I loved…it helped me dream…of a better tomorrow, a good job, money, a fast car and a big city…it helped me dream of independence and power.

Today the song plays in a fast car, in a big city…the song remains the same…just that the dream feels insane.

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