Where is the Life I wanted?

Each day I am awake with that same feeling
A small part of me is leaving
Each day seems like the end of some beginning
Somewhere in this crowd, it’s my identity that I’m losing

My mind’s full of questions no one seems interested in answering.
Where am I running?
Why am I running?
Where is the life that the glib talking salesmen were selling?

It’s that same empty feeling
The one that seems to have no meaning
The one that cannot be filled by the riches I’m accumulating
Yet I feel it like my own breathing
I fail to fight this empty feeling
It’s that time which I’m longing
When I no longer feel this need of running

I ask for the beautiful moments to freeze
Give myself a few seconds to breathe
But somehow I’m not at ease
Something somewhere disturbs my peace
Why do I hang on to things fleeting as these?

I lie, but never sleep
Not for me those beautiful dreams
I twist and turn
It’s the morning sun I yearn.

And yet morning brings the same old feeling!

Cursed!

Do you believe in the supernatural? Ever had the feeling that some unknown force up there knows all the cards in your hand and deals out the game exactly the way it wishes.

Well I have been feeling this way for some time. It happens with such uncanny knack that I am convinced that some thing out there is working against me. I would like to refer to this force as “CC” for the time being.

It’s a long story… I will begin from the start. The story is more about the house and not so much about me really. I just happen to live there. And that is something that CC doesn’t like I think. We have a beautiful house… tastefully done up, a welcoming patio, small green area in the front and back, a great location, friendly neighbors, a lovely breeze all the time, a wonderful view of the night sky… enough for us to take up the house without much persuasion. It seemed too good really at that time. Little did we know the price we would have to pay for it?

I still remember the day it happened for the first time… we were watching a much awaited India Australia cricket match… and the lights went out… … we missed most of the match including Tendulkar’s masterful innings. We attributed it to our bad luck and thought nothing about it at that time. Little did we know CC had started its work.

Then it happened again… this time the cable connection was lost and we missed the entire match. This happened 2 days in our row…enough to drive me to the verge of madness.

Then CC decided to get meaner…. It allowed us to glimpses of cricket but only when we played at our abysmal lowest. CC was particularly harsh on Sachin…

There is one thing I have to acknowledge… how CC came up with novel ways to deprive us of our dose of the nation’s favorite past time. Sometimes we had no cable connection because the cable got stolen. On other occasions it rained like cats and dogs on match days in places that otherwise are known as mini-Saharas.

The final nail in the coffin came with the World Cup… Ashwin got sent to US on business…which meant he would miss the majority of the world cup, Himanshu is not really the one to sweat about wickets and runs, so technically I was bracing for the full fury of CC. What would CC dish out this time? Volcano? Or perhaps a cyclone in Pune? CC was smart… not one to lift a finger without reason… we just go knocked out in the first round… I could almost picture CC beaming as the last Indian wicket fell.

I have never seen an hour of good cricket ever since I have shifted into our house… CC has won…I no longer watch cricket at home… rather catch glimpses of it standing in front of electronic shops… I think its helping... we are doing better these… we just beat Bangladesh twice over in 2 keenly contested matches…. May be we can make it three in a row…who knows… CC I hope you are not listening.

P.S: For the uninitiated, CC=Cricket Curser.

Old Man and his Birthday Wishes!

I have never seen him, let alone meet him. I don’t know how he looks like. I don’t know how old he is (though I guess he’s old); I don’t know where he stays and what he does for a living. I call him Aba coz that does how I think he wants me address him.

But what I do know is that each year without fail I receive a postcard on my birthday. And it’s the same each year… A brown post card from way out with that same scrawny handwriting and more importantly with that same affection and concern knowing very well that this gesture of his will never be reciprocated. Even the blessings are the same… something to the effect that should I strive to be the best I can each year. He signs off with a characteristic “Tujha Aba”.

I picture a frail but active old man pulling out my name from an ancient diary that he treasures more than anything else in his life, putting on his glasses and looking frantically for my name in a list of names, not sorted by any logical parameter but fondly stored with probably a small anecdote attached with each entry.

I am of course not the only blessed one. Each one in my family receives the old man’s blessings on the birthdays, child births and anniversaries.

Occasionally he calls up people (of course he never calls me up)... only to enquire about the new developments in the family… did Mr X move to Kalyan? Did Mrs D daughter get married? Whats the name of Mr and Mrs B’s son? And such kind of questions.

What is it that keeps him going? I might never know.

Here’s saluting to the man himself… thank you for remembering me all these years.

This year I am thinking of doing an Aba on Aba himself.

I hope I succeed.