Most things in life are done out of compulsions – few explicit, most implicit. Being punctual to office belongs to the latter (if you are into HR). It’s a usual morning. After snoozing for approx. 20 minutes, I finally push myself out of the bed. As I slowly descend from the astral world, I realize the only thing “usual” about this morning is the eternal internal conflict of “to bunk or not to bunk”. The sky is gloomy, rains haven’t stopped pouring since last night, the air is fresh and cold – it carries a fragrance better than the one trapped in nina ricci bottles….it is ideal – a hot cup of coffee, my bed and day full of “nothingness”…but.. I give in, I have to rush – the corporate butchers do not understand that there’s much more to life than to earn a living….do I?...may be not! none of us do …guess the “implicit compulsions” are more potent than the explicit ones.
At 9 in the morning one of the busiest roads to travel in the city is the “hi-tech”, where thousands of techies drag themselves to work each day – decked up, wearing the rectangular access/ID cards around their necks which reduce each one of them into a number, but does give them some sort of “identity” we all crave for.
The traffic is totally jammed. I am happy as it gives me some more time and a valid reason to reach office late. Still at the same spot as I was 10 mins ago, the music in my ipod starts giving me a headache. I put it off and look around...
A pretty girl in a rickshaw doing and re-doing her make-up with complicated colored pencils…impatiently looking at her watch time and again…An old woman wearing a faded saree in another rickshaw...contemplating in silence, in no hurry to reach anywhere…
A white school bus stuffed with kids- all of them tearing each others clothes apart….a group of younger children happily selling flowers, thanking the traffic jam to give them maximum client exposure.
A black Mercedes (something to die for) and a disturbingly handsome man on the back seat (something to live for: P) …too engrossed in his palmtop to notice anything around… A cycle with 27 chickens on each side tied upside down …the fastest one to twist and turn and make its way out of the commotion...
A “formally dressed” mid- aged man on a pulsar continually convincing someone on phone getting ready for his sales target …. A old bike - 3 friends , adjusting themselves on a red caliber having the best laugh of their lives…
A rainy morning….a standstill corner of a fast paced city made us all look like the “self- absorbed” characters of a similar story – ever flowing , ever moving from someone, something, somewhere to someone, something ,elsewhere. It is few explicit stops in life like these , when I wonder how everything around is indeed beautifully implicit!
