Just another week of fight. Then finances will be all right. For one week at least. Another two weeks to make a complete circle of life. Before halting into another void.
The void. Where you exist and function and feel nothing. But you are not entirely numb either.
The void in itself isn’t bad. Afterwards, after entering the void, I can feel your pain and all the pain around the world and can translate it into the words I know badly.
You may have realized it or not, but tight spaces and pain bring a lot of imaginations. A lot of words. Every stranger is a walking afsana (short story). Every road is a road to eternity. Every story is a sad story. Everyone looks miserable.
And you can relate to the real world. The real, real world.
Like that lady who walks a kilometer daily to her bus stop to save rikshaw money. Do footpaths matter?
Or that sabzi wala who is going to drag his cart with shaking wheels throughout the day to make enough that would never be enough. Do quality of road matters to him?
Or that guy wearing a dirty shirt over his clean dress-shirt with a tie and shining shoes; and speeding his bike to work where he would be listening to insults almost the entire day. Does he matter if his bike slips, and he dies in an ugly accident with his blood making a new lane on the road?
Or that new girl in town who came with the love of her life only to be sold out here. Should she take bath and scrub the skin, or should she pass another zombie day as every day is the same day? How many times would she serve today? She wonders, who she would be opening up to tonight?
Or that man who is going to court today again. For over a year now. All his savings have gone in the gutter of laws and justice. But don’t feel bad for him. He’s going to court to lie again about the property that doesn’t belong to him. The misery would stand on the other side of the courtroom. I don’t know her. But does air conditioning matters in the courtroom?
And among all these miseries and routine tragedies are those sleeping on footpaths. High on dose. Drugged. Away from the falling meteors of the universe. We feel bad for them. They feel bad for us. For sure they sleep better than us. Like the laborers who sweat all day and have no home to go back to and just sleep wherever they can. Without a sleeping pill.
Or that new Deputy Secretary going to office on his official car – the car that belongs to people mentioned above – to pass another day with nodding and some quotable quotes. Too drugged from last night. Got some fresh weed and consumed more than routine. Now, he would need four cups of coffee – yes, coffee funded by the miserable lot of people – to at least be able to sit and nod and look like the smartest one in the room. By that way that room too is bearing operating costs being borne by the miserables mentioned and not mentioned above.
Now tell me, isn’t tightness beautifully sad? Hundred stories day after day. Walking novels. Running mysteries. Sleeping nightmares.
Sorry for all that. Just another week…