Ahhhh......its been very long since I have posted anything....I am both angry at myself and pity me for the lack of time, or non inclination to write when I have time...well my recent choices have been between relaxing (read sleeping) or pushing myself to my self-extended boundries to work/write some more...The former has won 99 number of times outta 100 in my arguments with self...
well, finally I am here, doing my favourite thing...taking time off from all the runing...my small pre-diwali gift to myself....and wondering if this mad marathon run is really worth it...
On my train journey back and forth frm work, after crazy long days which has now become a robotic routine, a drill to be followed frm one day to next...one question has been nagging me constantly.....Time and its relativity.....Nothing has made it more appearent to me then the mad routine which is my life now.... and as usual, my darling, sweet, electic, dynamic, colorful, scary, weired, angry, painful, chaotic, happening, loving Mumbai becomes the microcausm for an explanation....
Roll, camera and action....
scene: a crowded dadar station, train arrival, womens compartment, chaos to get in-get out, start train, a woman hanging by a tinsly train handle, tyin to balance herself on the edge of the train step, as it speeds ut of the station, fighting on the phone...
snippets frm it..
I cannot come in tomorow, pls understand, I cannot,....my new job, have to go..hospital, I cannot come, is she serious? but Leave i will not get, shit m sorry...dont break up...no but new job.......ya 7 months.....difficult to handle boss.....dont do that...I knw your mum dying...sorry but cannot make it........ahhh.....ummmm....I understand.......no no......cannot help you......i understand your state.....Sorryy.....no no.....pls pls.....i know.....pls....(hear sobs, crying)...
finishes the calls, tear washed face...pained....
this lady is a regular in my train....both of us roughly have the same routine....get on the same train early morning at 7.15 and are usually going back hme around 9 at night......I smile at her and she likewise, we even talk once in a while.....I understand her situation, she knows that I know her situation and hve heard her talking on the phone.....
She has a fiancee, his mum is in the hospital, serious. He wants her to visit his mum. She cannot take a leave from her "new" 7-8 months old job, for her pain-in-the-ass, nagging boss...
After I get off the train...I begain to think of her situation....what would I do? would I take a leave, risk the job, stake the career, financial concern? Go visit the mum, or hurt her fiance, risk a breakoff, hurt a mum and leave her in pain????
What would you do? how far is a Mumbaite ready to run the unending rat race, how inhuman can people get?? Is this what Mumbai is all about? Is this the pride of the financial capital of India? what are we? who are we? do we fall under the label of "being a human"....
I dono...What I do believe in is these line by a poet whose name I cannot recall....
"What is life if full of care?
There is no time to stand and stare..."
