But am not the only one !

It is surprising that events, to which you have no personal connection whatsoever, can drive you mad. A glass window focused light onto oxidized pages bearing reports about the girl on the late night bus in Delhi, and I burnt. I burnt in silence. In an air conditioned cubicle, while sipping a cup of coffee, and typing on a Babbage's bastard about how bad I feel. Because that's the most I can do. 'That's the most you can do ?', you ask. Oh yeah ! With all the paid leaves spent on going to the mall to watch American superheroes fighting for 'global' peace, do you think I could do anything more ? Like you, I too dream of changing the world, being a Martin Luther or maybe a Medha Patekar someday. Therefore, I pickup my burger, grind juices out of the lettuce and chicken, throw the empty packet on the road and post updates on social media about how cities turn into dumpsters. Yaay ! 

Sometimes, though, I feel good. And positive. And I feel I am really worth something much more. Something on the lines of a piece of puzzle in the cosmic jigsaw. On those days, I try talking to bus conductors about their twelve hour daily service schedule (with a unitary pee-break) and ponder about their shabby homes, waiting wives and crying children, thinking if I could change some of it. On other days, I see eunuchs clapping their way to beggary, and I feel this isn't the right way to live -perhaps an NGO that provides alternate sources of livelihood and makes them literate may be the first step towards healing. I start making subconscious blue-prints, ignore my professional chores and suddenly, the loop pulls me back for a head on collision with the piled up backlogs. 

So I survive. Day in. Day out. Trying to be different, ending up being all alike. Like the clay cups in the picture - each one a clone of the immediate next. Each one born for the same old job. Each one filled to the brim with beverage, each one sipped slowly and peacefully, and each and every one of them discarded once their worth is over. But maybe, in the life that is so short and subtle, maybe if I can cause a little less burn, and degrade in the raindrops to make the earth a little more fertile, I would have served my purpose. That is why I dare to breathe in dust, and try to breathe out poetry.

And I am not the only one !