Mundane….

Read the word first time in cousin’s Instagram post. It was a beautifully captured afternoon moment of Mumbai streets through a taxi’s window. He sounded seriously philosophical in the post comments talking about some journey and how boring a common man’s life is etc. etc. Philosophy, a little heavy for me. So I find my brother boring sometimes. I mean, the picture is great, shades look great, people in the frame look easy and calm. My brother surely has great photo snapping skills. So why make entire episode boring with that little pinch of philosophy.

I mean he is intelligent (a tad more than me so I am little jealous of him), reads thickest of the books, his longer hairs, glasses etc. puts him that class perfectly. Moreover he is convent educated. Naturally, his flair for English is much much better than someone like me educated in a municipality school.

I mean what qualities you need to be a philosopher? Only two things; one, you should know all the hell of the difficult words from every corner of Oxfords Dictionary and two, you should throw such words every now and then to non-philosophers like me to make them feel inferior.

Idiots like me do what in such cases? Open dictionary or google it.

That’s what I did. I simply googled it. What did I find? Mundane means something dull or it refers to things of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one. Spurt in its usage in last decade points rise in philosophers’ population so much so that idiots like me might be in minority.

What was so boring about the place, the afternoon? Still puzzled, I decided to have another look at the photo. And I found nothing boring in it. For sure it was not dull in any context. It looked a bright and sunny afternoon. Hot and humid might be though. The street was full of colors, the yellow car passing-by, a lady in bright green sari, a man wearing a shirt with trillions of colorful flowers on it, the girl with scarlet shoes. Few school children brought much needed innocence in the picture. Above all, an Irani Café in the backdrop. I could even smell the Chicken Tikka Masal, biryani etc. and feel those bubbles of overflowing beer mug.

Someone might spend his entire life in search of heaven, someone might find it in such dull places.

Someone enjoys being a common man while someone wants to become a philosopher.

Individuals’ choices after all.

Sitting in that taxi, he must have felt good for leaving that very ‘mundane’ place whereas I wanted to be at that very place living that very moment as I soaked in the photograph.