A Road Mate

I see her everyday on my way to work. We cross each others way at the vegetable vendor’s cart. So in a sense she is my ‘time-check’ also. If I happen to meet her at a point before the vegetable vendor’s then I am late, I’ll probably miss the bus. If I meet her at a point after crossing the vegetable vendor’s then probably I am before time and will have to await the bus. It is only now when I sit back and write about it that I wonder, well it can even be vice-versa, me being on time and she being early or late. But maybe I have never had that kind of right confidence about myself. So then I quicken or slacken my pace depending on where we meet.
There are thousands of faces I cross everyday and maybe the same ones considering I walk the same routine path more or less at the same timing and the others would be doing a similar thing, but her face remains in my memory. I can close my eyes and see her face in my mind. She wears a bored and exhausted look for having been woken up from sleep. Maybe she does not like to get up early. She slouches with the burden of the bag she carries on one shoulder. Maybe she is not happy with whatever classes she is taking early morning. She seems lost in thought and unaware of the world around. Maybe she is making a mental list of the million to-do things for the day. She drags her feet with an effort and has ear phones plugged always. Maybe she hates walking and loves to shut the world out with music. She stops and makes her pick of vegetables by pointing only never uttering a word. The vendor also seems to have gotten used to her techniques. Maybe she is a very confident person who can make others work by her rules and then she simply moves on. This has been happening for the past 18 days since I have taken up a new job and need to walk all the way to the bus station. It’s the same everyday with the only change in the color and pattern of the clothes we wear. In spite of this I try to take a close look at her, without letting her know. There is something intriguing about this young lady who seems to have taken the world in her stride and still cares a damn about it. She probably does not belong here. Her self-worth seems creditable; there is no trace of being a snob or being egoistic.
Wow! I have made quite a few conclusions about her without even having exchanged so much as a smile. I am no face reader or any aura specialist, wonder then what is it that makes me not only look at her but also think about her and the sense of mystery she holds. I don’t know if some day we will cross this barrier of being strangers and talk to each other having the ‘common path we cross’ as a starting point. And will she read this write-up some day and burst out laughing saying, not a word of what I concluded is true or will she start wondering if I have been spying on her since I have so much information about her? That will happen the day it does, till then maybe I’ll have to rest my case and ensure that curiosity does not kill the cat!

Big City! Small City! Identity?

The thought started troubling me when I was walking to the bus station to take a bus to office. It even surprised me that such thoughts continue to brew in my mind, considering that I have already resigned my self to routine existence and acceptance of the fact that this is life and one has to continue existing. Getting back to my thought, ‘Where do I belong?’ No, I am not venturing into the arena of unanswered secrets of life, like who am I? What is my purpose in life and what shall I be when I die? My question is a very direct one as to where exactly do I belong? In the identity crisis of the small city big city syndrome, I find that I fall on neither side of the fence and nor am I walking the thin line.
Maybe a retrospect would help. So I go back to the story of my life. I was born in a middle class, well to do family, with tradition as its foundation and education its aim. Maybe there is a conflict in the making already. On one hand our family was well to do, so that we could afford the basic necessities and comforts of life and at the same time it was tagged as ‘middle class’ because luxuries of life did not come easy. Grounded in tradition we followed all the customs and rituals of the religion and at the same time, holding education high, my parents educated me to the highest levels that I desired to learn in spite of all odds hoping to broaden my horizons. Only now the breadth seems to be a complete misfit.
Every belief I had, all my ethics and principles, all code of conduct has undergone the test of challenge and I find myself today with little that I firmly believe in or find solace in. Things like ‘this is the norm of the family’ faded soon after I left home to venture into the big world of universities and corporate business. But I have never been able to pick the ‘big city lifestyle’ and ‘corporate culture’ either. The result is I am all high and dry with nothing to call my own. Neither am I surrounded by cool guyz and gals who party every night, nor am I able to walk the streets with my head down and eyes lowered. Agreed I am probably making a black and white distinction between the small city public and the big city junta, but then, how many grey outcasts like me do we have anyway? Probably I have answered my own question, and the answer is people make an effort to fit in. Either they pack their bags and get on to the ‘settled life’ bandwagon or they transform themselves into a new being all together from accent to aura. It is the grey-ing ones that are lost into the wilderness. Is it not ironic that I want to hold my ground and not change, not fit in even though it translates into losing my identity in the wilderness?