Wanderer

Riches and rags

Once in a year, the Oberoi grounds become a mini shopping hub for Delhi. The whole place is adorned with vibrant handicrafts, gorgeous garments and mouth-watering food. It's a pseudo robin hood event that takes money from the rich (by selling them expensive goods of course) and gives some of the loot to the Blind Relief Association (it is their initiative after all). Although a bit heavy on one's regular festival budget, this mela is easily a must-visit because of its sheer spread of amazing gifts, decorations, clothes... You name it. 

Enchanted by such abundance of colors, I made up my mind to do some serious shopping, hiding all guilt of overspending behind the pretense of charity. Picking and rejecting knickknacks from amid this grandeur, I stumbled upon one stall which rendered all the glamour away.

These were colors too. But they narrated a different story, where glamour was not in the riches but in freedom. Where light was not hanging from expensive chandeliers but glimmering in the eyes that desired that luxury.

To us, who take their possessions for granted at times, was this a painting or a mirror? I wonder.

Brief encounters: Elevator hunk

Like every morning I boarded the elevator dreading office as usual, when a distinctly handsome guy entered the same lift. So you know how it is always good to have a room with a view, the universe had strategically placed me at one such spot inside that 15 people carrier. Like a shy indian girl, I secretly admired him for an eternity of a few seconds, wondering if he by any chance he was in my company. His ironed formals told me that he was definitely not from Google, and lack of a blazer confirmed he wasn't from Michael Page either. He could be in Oracle or Amex but then we had passed those floors. While I was busy playing Sherlock, he spoke up. 

It's a hell of a thing killing a man

I paced around my room in worried steps. It was one of those rare moments when I saw cushions and papers strewn around the room but didn’t fidget to put them back in place. A restlessness surged in my heart and overpowered all the compulsive instincts. Once again I looked at the papers that detailed my next move. I hated such crossroads. More than a crossroad, right now it felt like walking on a tight rope, I was doomed to fall on either side. I sat on the floor and hid my face in my hands, as if that would hide me from the trouble that lingered in the air. I heard the door of my room open and was relieved to see Zahir. 

“I can’t do it” I threw my hands in the air in surrender, “I can’t kill Jay”

The Illusion of Wisdom

Wisdom makes you old, or does it come with age, I could never understand. But the irony is, when you are wise enough to know what’s right, you might have already lost the time to do the right thing. We lose many battles to win a few. And in the end, when our life has nothing but a history, we revisit its pages and pause at the unwritten words.

Why do we fall, Bruce?

I stumbled upon this status message that a friend of mine had put up on her wall, and it got me talking to myself.

‘Why do we fall?’

‘Gravity?’

‘No Kidding’

‘I am not kidding. Remember, the apple… the Newton guy in white wig who screwed our lives with his laws of motion... in Physics?’

‘Ok fine. But weren’t you supposed to say “So that we can learn to pick ourselves up”, like Alfred in Dark Knight?’

‘I wish I could, but I don’t want too’

‘Wow! I am trying to get philosophical and you, dumping Confucius or Hume, quote Phoebe Buffay?’

‘Haha! I quote her as I see you are not listening to what I am saying and still playing that movie in your mind. We’ll talk when you have time for me’

‘Ok. You have it. You have my attention. But please don’t give me that gravity shit again or I’ll switch you off’

‘Well gravity sure is an answer, in a way. Before I answer why we fall, tell me why do we don’t? ’