The last few days have been difficult for me… difficult by my standards… I am a very fortunate person otherwise… almost falling into the “born with a silver spoon” category… but due to some wars waging within me, I’ve experienced tears and more tears…. I guess the reason has been that someone I’ve loved most in my life, without quite realizing that I have, has shifted to another city… and physical distance bothers me… I wonder how I was coping when I was in Jharkhand… away from everybody I knew… In hindsight, I believe I had probably grown numb to the idea of time and distance… Did I mention Jharkhand was/is a full 24 hours away… and this is not the slowest time a train I travelled in clocked… Once it took me 31 hours to reach Delhi which is another 5-6 hours away from my hometown…
Anyways, the point of the matter is that whenever my heart stops complying with my spirit, I reminiscence a lot… so today I am reminded of a few titbits which have left me thinking about the beauty and romance which is life… these real-life instances have the ability to raise me up and so penning them down gives me an altogether new high.
Since I am working as a language teacher these days, during one of my more “normal” days, I was busy with work at the reception area of our office when one elderly gentleman, who must be nearing 80, entered with a priceless smile … confused as we were, my colleagues and I offered him a seat… confused because it is a hotspot for youngsters…and I conveniently see myself as one of them… (my friends tell me age is working wonders for me and I choose to believe them)…
So this possible octogenarian sits down, looks us in the eye and with so much honesty in his voice says that he loves the bags which he’s seen the students of our academy carry… He corrects himself and says that it is actually his wife who visits the dentist next door every once in a while and had fallen for the “red” bag flung on the young shoulders… that it reminds her of her youth and she has expressed a wish for one such sling thing… Her wish is his command… (He didn’t say this last bit, but that he meant it is anybody’s guess…) So do we, by any chance, have anything similar to offer him? I offered him my speechless heart… he autographed it… and became my hero.