The race

Aakhir zindagi ki daud main bhaag ke jaana kahan hai..

Agar yahin jeena hai to marna kya hai?

After 10 months in the city these 3 weeks have shown me the real Mumbai. It’s a mad world where people just hurry by furiously. When you walk toward a station a sea of people would be coming at you. Their expressions passive. Their eyes seeing some space far beyond you. You are invisible. Over the weeks I have found my pace increasing to that manic level, to catch the next train, the next bus. Because if I wait I ll miss that bus and I will have to wait. Wait. Am too busy to wait in this endless race.

As I leave home for the day at 7.30 am. I travel for an hour and half. Often by all 3 means available to me. Auto. Train. Bus. On the same day. I reach my destination where I plonk myself before a computer. The phone an extension of my ears.
I eat greasy hotel food and pay in 3 digits for it everyday.
I leave work at 8pm. Do the train+bus routine again.

People shove and push you in the hurry. But am learning. Yesterday I shoved an old man walking ahead of me. He was slowing me down. I would have missed my bus. Immediately as I pushed ahead of him our eyes met and a pang of guilt surged through. But there was no time for guilt. I had to hurry.

I reach home at 9.30. home. My empty room in a comparatively empty hostel . I mix myself a Tang and check my mail. Dad calls me prompt on time. But am too tired to reply to his queries of how my day went. He wants to know how his only offspring is coping with work. But I get irritated. It was ok I snap. Am tired I say before I hang up.

I drag myself to the mess. Where I don’t feel or pay attention to what I eat. I listen to some music and fall asleep. The next day breaks too soon.

6 days. Week after week.

People who said life’s about the journey and not the destination can take a hike. Time to smell the flowers. I only smell the sweat of my co passengers.
I love my work. I get up without any alarm. I think about what I will do the next day.
I do not realize the existence of Sundays.

Yet as I sit in the window seat and see the buildings fly past, I wonder if my life is too?