A day of my life

When you sleep for 1/64532565545th of a second in 48 hours and have to wake up betimes every aurora, life cannot be racy for you. Life is nothing but a thudding experience of 'un'events. If you are a person who just can't believe that there are people who jog or brisk walk at 04:30 Hrs, then you have understood what I mean to say. And when you have to leave your house at such hellish hours for reasons like college or job, you are partly sleepy and partly dead during that time.

Your day begins with the usual ablution chores that are to be performed at the start of the day. It pours heavily outside as it's the monsoons. The raincoats over the saddening formal attire kill the minuscule & leftover enthusiasm to go to the office. Matters in the mind worsen as you see the other members of your family sleeping nice and tight.

You go out the apartment and soon are chased by a gang of barking dogs. You slip on the road, but luckily miss a great fall a couple of times as you try and get rid of the dogs. You see a few joggers jogging in the rains and wonder about the presence of weird people in this world. Jogging in the rains seems totally harebrained to you. You have to walk through some distance before you reach to your mode of conveyance. 

It is still dark, but the street lights are off (municipality, damn it!) and you have to walk in the dark on a bumpy road during heavy rains and more importantly, when you are sleepy eyed. You do not care where your feet land as you walk through puddles and pointed stones. To reach the office on time is what you are worried about. 

You pass through a series of gullis and kaccha roads. You finally reach the main road. You do not find a single unoccupied auto rickshaw. Now, there is only one way you can hope to reach to your mode of conveyance. That is by walking. And now you can only hope you reach your destination and do not miss your vehicle.

You find the main roads water logged. Lots of filth and smut. You decide to take the sub-way. Through the sub way, you feel you can reach your destination the quickest. You notice that the sub-way is illuminated decently. The subway is built over a naalaa. You pass through the sub way steadily. It becomes difficult to walk on the water logged road. 

You have lifted your trousers above and about the knee level. The cold water makes you shiver a little. You feel you'll cramp any time. You are nice and steady at walking. Suddenly, you feel a grip. You stop inevitably and balance yourself. It is a grip that is not tight, but detectable. You think it might be a stray branch of a tree that's flowing with the water. You look down at your feet. The sleep deprived eyes and the dim illumination do not instantly help you know about the 'nature' of the grip. It is only after you focus your attention to know about the 'grip' when you notice that the grip is nothing less than a limbless reptile. A venomous snake your mind says, though the heart still doesn't agree. But, this sachchai is enough to cause permanent numbness in your entire body. Your leg being temporarily groped by none other than a 5-6 feet long snake, is a tremendous jolt to your sleepiness and sensibilities. You wait until freed from the sudden fumble by a deadly venomous snake. Some how you come safely out the sub-way and are half way your destination. 

The METRO station, that is coming up, blocks your further approach. You make a resolution to fight out all the odds that'll come your way. You forget about the snake thing for a while. You successfully and unknowingly, almost miraculously pass through the pipe work of the Metro Project. 

Next thing you see is that your mode of conveyance is fleeing away without taking you along. You are just 10 meters away. But, the over-exacting and punctual driver will not wait for you. The driver is of the types who believe "Either you are or you not. You are not 'almost'. Either a woman is pregnant or isn't." 

You see all those efforts to reach the destination go in vain when the conveyance mode moves away. You signal and you shout to make the driver stop the vehicle. He doesn't. You become desperate. Next thing you do is that you pick up a pebble from the metro construction area. Of course, you wouldn't pick it up for nothing. You gather all your strength and shy the pebble at the vehicle hoping that the impact will make the driver stop the vehicle. 

There is an impact on one of the glass panes of the vehicle. Thankfully, you don't end up shattering the glass piece. You make it to the vehicle. You realize it was a long way towards the destination.

And this was just another day of my life.

 

TIME PLEASE!

I am sorry. Please DON’T tear this letter away! Read it once.

I was so.. so… ignorant about  you when you were around. Being an aimless dork, having a neat composition of mass & minute amount of energy, I wasted you in copious amounts. That you would be with me and available to me each time and every time was so, by nature, obvious that I simply took you for granted. I, unknowingly, under the influence of and sheer admiration towards ‘LEISURE’ devaluated you.

I, You and LEISURE together have experienced great moments of happiness & bliss; we cared a damn about anything. We were a nice company all the while. Do you remember those moments when you would accompany me to my college? Even BOREDOM accompanied us many-a-time. And how my college friends would try to cast off BOREDOM from all of us! BOREDOM had no other option and had to goodbye us forever.

I hope you remember those awesome days we spent together when I was supposed to study for the upcoming exams. And how fascinated we were when all three of us met SLEEP for the first time! And SLEEP would visit us quite often those days. I remember LEISURE getting really ‘close’ to SLEEP famously. LEISURE was on a date spree with SLEEP, REVERIE and DAYDREAMS. I can’t even dare to forget the awesome time we had on the bed, each time and every time. We indulged in one another. We would watch the repeat telecast of Wimbledon matches in the morning. Then, SLEEP would depart us for a brief period and join us again for the siesta. AMAZING DAYS, man!

We would watch movies all day and deliberately keep SLEEP waiting and wanting for us. After movies, we would worry about the possibility of SLEEP leaving us forever. But, SLEEP, being the nicest soul amongst us, would forget about the harsh treatment given by us and would embrace us immediately. We all made a nice little group. The only annoying part was that LEISURE would manage to be with us only during the May vacation and the Diwali holidays. I always considered you to be my best mate. You made yourself ever available for me. Through thick and thin.

But, the course of the recent days has changed a bit. We don’t quite meet each other as often. SLEEP meets me at night, but without you and LEISURE, our meet is not really a meet. SLEEP has become my want now. Also, BOREDOM has been troubling me since a few days. BOREDOM has realized that I am unable to meet my friends quite often. My WORK keeps me busy the whole day. Travelling, I hear, is BOREDOM’s best friend. The worst part of BOREDOM being around is that it brings a lot of bad company along with it. Like FRUSTRATION & ANGER.

And your absence from my life has made my living all the more painstaking. Please, make yourself available for me. I need you more than anything else. Your absence has automatically created an unwarranted gap between me and LEISURE. And you need to bridge that gap soon. We all can get together big time and start living together again. My work life will not allow us to enjoy the way we did in the past, but at least we can get it all started. Please don’t ask me to quit my work and all. Don’t let the BEST hamper the better. PLEASE, COME BACK SOON and make YOURSELF AVAILABLE.

-          To,

My Dear TIME.