Sunday, August 29, 2010

It’s Complicated!!!

Bus journeys are always joyful. Ok not always especially when they are really crowded and you have no other option than to hop into one hanging yourself in the handles surrounded in the middle of similar tired exhausted and equally irritated souls and then when you find one loser standing at the back and trying to touch you at the press of every break and jerk!!! Yeah we all face it at some point or the other. And we all hate it equally!!! Sometimes submissive and at times aggressive, we try to deal with it in our own way. But then when it is a blessed day and you get to catch that window seat as your valued possession (just for a short duration though). The crisp air caressing through your face as you tune into that favorite track in your iPod while the lovely city breeze just blows away the tiredness and exhaustion with itself. Bliss it is!!! And then as you turn around, you find a face familiar to you sitting next. Who is also equally blessed as you today. And the two of you celebrate the joy of your ‘seat acquisition ceremony’ offering a friendly smile to each other. I might sound crazy here but then you would know how it feels to get a seat if you had to travel standing in the middle of a crowded bus for 4 hours every day. And if you don’t, then I tell you, you are certainly missing out something in life.

As the wheels role forward, moves further the friendly chat with my stranger. She is the very same whom i meet every day in the bus, pass to her the ticket in the crowd, also sympathize with her when she shows her frustration to those unfriendly touches that we all are part of. We both share a similar story and that’s fit enough to strike the wavelength. And then it becomes a regular affair. Sometimes we get to converse on such lucky days, and on the others it’s just a smile that does the job.

She is not a friend nor is she an acquaintance. A fellow passenger who is now a little more than the usual ones. We laugh. We talk. We share. Not much but yes a small slice of our everyday life. We talk about the weather, the city, the people and the work. We are different yet same, as I discover my reflection in her eyes. The age difference gets washed off in the tide of laughter on sharing of a light moment from the office or tickling on a joke. Some relationships
(If you call them one. I do)are difficult to describe. In the intense bright neon lights of a hectic and frantic urban life where the intensity of close relations gets dim under the cloud of work and lack of time. One tries to find her share of sunshine and solace in the small little sharing of light moments with such strangers at times. You feel the city doesn’t care for you. Nor do you care for it either. But then someone in the middle of the crowd stands up to offer his seat to you as a kind humane gesture. Someone who is yet again a stranger. You don’t know him or his name. You don’t feel the need to ask as well. You bid him thanks as you get down, with the thought of gratitude surrounding your heart. An inspiring gesture that propels you towards positivity and compels to offer your humane side back. Some relationships are really difficult to describe.

Now it’s your turn to take pleasure in the joy of giving. You lose your valued possession and gain a blessing smile in return as you get up and offer your seat to that elderly lady carrying a heavy bag. She takes out an orange from her bag and offers you her share of gratitude as you smile back and politely refuse to it. But is certainly touched by her genuine gesture. Again some relationships are difficult to describe. And they are better not. True it is, relationships are really Complicated!!! :)

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