The Circle of Life

-
Rudrapur: Panting my lungs out, I was on my way back from the morning jog (when kids start calling you uncle, you get that urge to stay fit!). One would not think of any significant thing to happen at this hour, but my dear old friend “Life” always has a small trick down its sleeve.

I normally go to a local stadium near my place, which is frequented by a number of people. The road leading to the pathway is normally littered with all sorts of people- chatting midwives, young lads of CISF sweating it out, young ones running in groups, and “uncles” like me (alas!) who with their headphones in are running with an eye on their waistline. This daily routine was however disrupted today by a pleasingly unfamiliar sight- comprising a lady (possibly 25-26 by the looks of her), an old Sikh man (surely around 75) and a white coloured two wheeler.

The young lady was apparently instructing something to her father apparently. He had the look of a man not too sure of what he was doing- and that’s when I realized what was going on. The lady was teaching her father how to ride the two wheeler. It was an amazing sight- breaking from the normal convention of the father teaching her daughter a bicycle, here we had a Gen Y lady, reversing time and giving something back to her father. The sight was so subtle, so serene…so humane!

I looked at the old man- riding probably the first vehicle of his family. The genuine feeling of being over the moon, of being proud was evident from his face. The lady, a manifestation of strength, passion and above all dreams, was standing watching him- tears in her eyes.


Quite suddenly, an image came in my mind- something we have all been through for sure. A man running behind you, promising not to leave the cycle while you paddled and jumping with joy on seeing you ride away. Imagine giving that feeling to that man, probably in not the same way but in some way!


                        
That’s what a good life will be about, wouldn’t it?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Small Steps, Big Impact!

-
Image
Somewhere in the clouds, en-route Mumbai to Lucknow: I was staring at that guy- snugly sitting without his face shield on, while the lady next to him was eyeing him nervously. A similar scenario was playing out four rows ahead of us; a middle-aged lady was comfortably sleeping in the middle chair, without her mask on, with no regard to the people besides her. On the other side were me and wifey- one bottle of sanitizer already over, hands washed about thrice since entering the airport and face shield on throughout. I know, we can be a bit paranoid about things, but in my defense, it is my life and I am not bothered by the infamous “chaar log” of our society. So with our defense mechanism in place, we continued our trip, culminating in reaching home, taking a bath, sanitizing entire baggage, and staying away from the family for the next two-three days. The scene in Lucknow was another story in itself- people sitting and happily chatting away, without the masks, the usual chai...
Read more

That Damn Spotlight!

-
Image
Mumbai, 30th March 2022 Phone in hand, I froze. Suddenly, every face in the audience became clearly visible to me, all looking at me. Talking to people was my profession, but today, I was talking about myself, my creation, my poem, the hook line was coming up, and I had stumbled on the previous line. This needed to go well, otherwise, the entire fun of the poem would have gotten lost.  Hands shaking, I took a deep breath and continued.  -- Glossophobia- the fear of public speaking, affects about 75% of the population. Some individuals feel slight nervousness, while some experience outright fear. Those staring eyes, those mocking faces, those uninterested looks, and those dreaded yawns!  I was a glossophob too.  Image Courtesy: https://images.app.goo.gl/CrPL8r2TCYf74K126 Let alone public speaking, I was uncomfortable talking in family gatherings! My modus operandi was to sit in the farthermost, discreet corner of the room, and gaze at a corner, cooking up stories (som...
Read more

A Bitter Cake

-
Image
1st Jan 2023: The smell of cooking chicken greeted us (wifey already started retching, while I fondly recalled my before leaving non-veg days). We then entered the  home  of Ashtami (name changed), our domestic help. I had absolutely no idea that I was stepping into the best party of my life.    30th Dec 2022: We got a call at 9pm in the night, "Ashtami"  calling"- at 9pm today. Irritated, we both looked at phone, sure that she will be calling for a leave for tomorrow. My wife gave me the phone (my HR background is used very opportunistically in such cases)- to talk to her and give her a telling off and she has taken 6 leave already this month. "Uncle, I am Ashtami’s daughter. Will you come to my b ’day on 1st January?" said a sweet voice on the other side. My tonality suddenly changed from forced anger to forced sweetness, "Sure beta, we will come." Then began a half hour discussion, with we moving from not going, to maybe, to going for 5 mins and ...
Read more