What’s on your mind?
Ideally speaking, we are always thinking. Idly speaking, we are always wondering what the fuck is going on.
To elaborate, we can only chart out a plan for the day. Yes, we can go a bit further and try to direct others too, to fit them into our little endeavours, but it’s impossible to avert all the imponderable obstacles waiting just around the corner to mess up our so-called plan. Surprises, surprises, everywhere, waiting to devour us.
That’s how it is.
Time is a bully and won’t let us bake the cake, let alone have/eat it. Precisely why we are on the stage fumbling with our incomplete scripts, hoping to improvise every second moment.
Plans are good though. They impose discipline on us and keep us in check. What they lack though is total control and that could very well be a reason why our mind remains occupied with the analogical equivalent of a hamster on the wheel—running without any direction.
Like us, thoughts come and go. Emotions do the same. Nothing is permanent for permanence’s sake. And in such a weird setup, we are supposed to figure all out. As contrived as this expectation is, we keep thinking. We keep wondering. I don’t know about you but i wonder about the most inane of stuff.
I often wonder what happened to all the teachers—from my kindergarten days to university — who taught me and helped me shape myself in to whatever i am today. I wonder how many of them are dead or alive. I wonder whether they had or are having a fulfilling life. Was it worth taking all that stress for strangers’ kids in the name of a career? Similarly, i wonder what happened to all the kids i grew up with. Where are they now? Married? No idea. Amazing how difficult is it to build a bond and how freaking easy is to break it. Once you’re forgotten, you are practically dead to people. Facebook or no Facebook.
Speaking of people, i wonder what happened to that young lady in green who waved back at me. She was by a paddy field, somewhere between Goa and Karnataka and i was sitting on the footsteps of a blue train. She must be doing fine; at least i hope she does. I wonder what happened to my first ‘best friend’ after he left school post-1st grade as his family moved to Bhayandar. We were to catch up. It’s been 25 years now. I also wonder what happened to all the strangers-turned-friends-turned-strangers i encountered during my various journeys. Be it that gentleman from Alappuzha who looked out for me during my debut on-my-own trip to Manipal (from Mumbai). I was 14 back then. If i jog my memory further down the nostalgia lane, there was once a Konkani man who helped us, my brother and me, sleep on the bus floor, back when we were both in primary school. Where must he be now? I wonder what happened to that nice thin fellow who showed up like an angel somewhere close to Shimoga aand helped repair our bike . If it weren’t for him, our bike trip would have been something else. Also, what happened to that Himalayan poet with whom i exchanged a rupee — he got an Indian one and i, a Nepali — after talking for 4+ hours between Nashik and Bombay? Is he alright? Oh, what about my pen pals whom i promised to meet someday? Hmm. I might have met them on the street of an unplanned city or in a local train or in a mall or sat next to in a Metro. Just that we weren’t (re)introduced properly. Who knows?
The list goes on and on; the list of questions as well as the list of unrequited answers.
In conclusion, there might be thousands and thousands of languages, with some dying a slow painful death every passing day, but there is no language greater than kindness. It speaks to you without you having to speak a single word. That’s the beauty of compassion. People being nice to each other when they don’t have to be is what sets us on a course of blissful memories. You meet such wonderful souls for a brief period of time but they touch a piece of you that continues to shine forever. They stay inside your head and since you’re left with no definite answers, you wonder about them with your eyes closed as well as with your eyes open.
