People, Crowd and Me

I know the date but I don’t know when I was born.

Its been a long time since I had water bottles round my neck, since we all fell down with “Ring-a-Ring o’ Roses” and since I wrote my exams through “four plus fives” and “three into twoes”. But who cares about it now anyway. It’s a mad rush and sometimes I wish I were Thomas Hardy. I’m not brilliant enough to write a book such as his, but “Far from the madding crowd” couldn’t be a better option.

I see people; people who’ve come here to be the solution to their family woes and people who’ve come over coz … well, they had nothing else to do; People who are dressed up in nothing less than Puma shoes, Nike socks, Levis Jeans, Reebok T-Shirts, Fastrack watches and Jockey under wear and people who write on their hostel wall, “Fuck this money culture”; People who would shoulder a tearful soul or would give it all for a smile on her face and people who walk hand in hand to advertise their pseudo-romanticized chivalry. People who would hang on to a charming departed past to fuel their hopes for tomorrow and yes, people, for whom departed is no better a word than non existent itself; some, for whom dad is the any time money, for some the hare-lipped kite runner and for some, “who gives a f**k”. I’ve seen by this time, ‘The genuine friend’, ‘The outright enemy’ and also the ‘The benign backstabber”.

So compelling is the intensity of this madding crowd that new men are forged every single day; some for the better, others, well … they just cease to be them. Its not too difficult to foresee the change, it’s the acceptance of it that is tricky; Many of us refuse it, others I guess get forged into new men themselves. Men designed to be efficient and just that, no emotional hangovers, no sentimental backlog.

Its a strange place; or maybe it’s just an instance of the terrible face of “The beautiful world” I’ve never seen or I guess I’ve never foreseen. I find it uneasy. Probably I’m just too young to grasp the complexity or probably I’m just too old to be comfortable with this transformation or maybe I just want to be reborn. Afterall, I know the date but I don’t know when I was born.