An excerpt from the book called Life.
As I was waiting for an auto amidst the infamous Mumbai rains after work today with my stomach rumbling and no autos in sight, I decided to reward it with some “Dahi-puri” (a savory local Indian dish) from the near by stalls... I can hear some of you scream, "You shouldn’t have street food in this weather!!!" Yeah Yeah, I know but my taste buds don’t abide by this society’s norms. Well... that’s not the point. While I was enjoying my little plate of guilty pleasure on a friday evening, I heard the nearby dabeli vendor, who was busy chopping onions, say to his friend, "Yeh kanda nahi, apni life kaat rha hu main"(It’s not the onions that I am chopping, but my life). Although his friend started laughing, I felt the weight of his words. The burden they carried of unfulfilled dreams, broken promises, lost people and many other unshared stories.
When we are young, we don’t realize the magnitude of this world and how insignificant we are in it. We live in our own little bubble and believe that everything is waiting to happen for us. We all dream of bigger things and we embellish them with adequate timelines. Everything makes sense and we feel that it’ll all fall into place. But, as soon as we grow up, step into the real world, reality starts striking in. Nothing goes as per our plan, the people we were once closest to are nowhere to be seen. Along with reality, responsibilities start taking over our brains and those little dreamers are locked somewhere in a dark room with big locks of practicality keeping them in. From time to time, they slip out to the front and make us ponder if it’s all worth it, waking up every day putting up a brave face and doing it all over again...?
But, isn’t this what life is about? Finding those little things to smile for in the chaos. I know... It’s easier said than done, but no one ever said that it’s going to be easy. And for those dreamers, I think they should be unlocked and allowed to breath without the sword of timeline hanging over their heads.
