A hectic Sunday evening – shopping amidst frozen crowds, a chaos of peddlers and hawkers shouting various slogans – some laughter provoking, some deafening, some showering the untapped Piyush Pandes and Prasoon Joshis. Trapped in a food world, stalls all around you with keepers on a constant watch for BMC vans. Enveloped by people – people of all sorts – lost souls trying to find their way out, squashed kids crying, shopping freaks (true, that’s where I fall too) with hands tied in shopping bags still looking for something to soothe their craving souls and rip their almost empty pockets.
People blowing money like it is nobody’s business, as if they it were a race to finish first. Malls in every direction that you can turn your head to – malls consuming power that houses could do with for months together, screaming for attention – promotions, games, food, shopping, kids’ zone, a social arena to flaunt your style and status, a get-together point and what not!
Pushing and pulling, I find my way out of this pollution. A little to the fore, I find a food stall, much emptier (Alright, I know empty isn’t the right word. A lil less crowded would be more apt…). Along with my mom and cousin, I steer my way to the stall. Laying my hands on a bottle of packaged water, I almost finish the bottle (No! I’m not a camel and I don’t store water. It was just the thirst, more thirst and still more of it.).
Ah, finally! I said to myself. There stood a panipuri stall with people gulping down those yummy looking golgappas. (Like they had starved for years together, one after the other it went down their throat. Wait let me correct you, it’s not like I have become evil all of a sudden but Dude! I am hungry too!)
Wow! Finally, I had the cup in my hand and it was my turn now! I turned for a second and there stood an innocent kid, in tattered clothes. He was much hungrier than I was. He wanted food even minus the taste. I gave my cup to him and brought him ahead. As he stood happily enjoying the Pani Puri, fear laid still in his eyes. He feared the love, he feared the closeness, he feared niceness, he feared my touch – he feared this cruel world! Once done, I asked him if he wanted to drink the tangy water, and he gently murmured “teekha paani”. He finished with the masala puri, wiped his face with his shirt, smiled and fled.
There was something magical about that kid that left me thinking. I turned around to get another glance of him but he was nowhere to be found. He must have fled fearing the guards; I thought to myself and plunged into my lost world!
Having had my share of Pani Puris, I left for home. I reached and once again got busy with reviewing my shopping and indulging in the feel good factor…Tired and satisfied, I kissed my mom goodnight, thanked god for all the good and bad things in life and finally hit my bed!
But Wait! It’s not just a story! The fact is that whenever I think of something or form an opinion about society or this world in general, I’m often set aback and shown how wrong I am. Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.
It’s a glutinous circle, where, for every evil act there is a conflicting reality that strengthens your hope. A hope that we all live on, a hope that many a times reaching the verge of shattering is strengthened by some stranger, a hope that serves as food and shelter for many a poor, a hope that makes us see tomorrow today... I once read, “Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence”. It’s we who decide what to look at. So do what you will! After all, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction!
Posts
