It was a day like any other. Nothing special about it - people may
say what they want, but I beg to differ. Weekday, made obvious by the
merciless honking of cars and the roar of their engines. Cars
containing people pretending to be too busy with their lives to care
about this world. Cars containing people working without a sense of
clarity in their lives, scrambling to add up penny after penny in
their banks accounts, aspiring to be the next Birlas and Ambanis,
very well knowing that they'll never even be 1/1000th as close.
I shifted my focus. I
looked up, and there she was again. She was sitting on what I suppose
was her 'favorite spot'. I observed her actions carefully for some
time, from a distance, just like the way I had been doing for the
last one week or so. She was lonely. Nobody paid any attention to
her. To the people, she was just another soul struggling for
existence like them.
The photographer in me
would have loved to capture her aura in a camera. The clothes she
wore were so unlike the people around her. Now you see, we live in a
society wherein when a poor man wears torn jeans, he does so because
he has no other option. But when a rich teen wears the same style of
torn jeans, it is considered as 'fashionable'. But personal opinions
aside, my subject did not care about 'fashion' even a bit. Her hair
kept unattended, like she no longer cared about the trivial rituals
of women of her age. It was obvious that she had more pressing issues
to care about.
Her most distinctive
feature were her eyes. They were unlike any others' I've ever seen.
Eyes, that had perhaps seen it all in life. Eyes, that cried for love
and longing - like a kitten looking up at you expectantly for more
food. Eyes, that had been doing all the talking since the day her dry
lips got tired of it.
I wanted to help her. I
wanted to make her happy. I wanted to solve all her problems, if I
had the power. My mind was racing. Should I do it? Would it be the
correct thing to do?
I finally decided to
approach her today. Nervous, I started walking awkwardly towards her.
What I was gonna do was nothing too spectacular to anyone around me.
You all have done it so many times, without giving it too much of a
thought. But it was a big deal for me. For reasons of my own, I never
give much thought to helping her 'kind'. I am a man of science and I
believe strongly in the 'survival of the fittest' theory. But there
was something about her. She was different. Her skin and her clothes
convinced my mind to betray my principles. I passed by her quickly,
not looking in her too familiar eyes, bending ever so slightly in
front of her.
Hearing the clank of my
coin hitting her metal bowl, I walked away, smiling a little, knowing
that at least two people in this world are going to have a fulfilling
dinner tonight.
(By the way, this was my second entry in the Scribe Hunt competition, unfortunately it did not win. Still, loved writing this post!)
