Friday, May 21, 2010

Are you there yet?

The clock is ticking. When you look back, your childhood days look eons behind, you look into the mirror your face looks a lot different, your body almost sags and aches. All of a sudden you start feeling old. When you look ahead you don’t know where you are going. Yet you run. You run from your past. You run towards your future. You run from everything you have known till date. You want everything around you to change which hasn’t changed in years. You don’t know what you are chasing yet you feel something is chasing you. What is it?


You want to stop it and you “Take a break”. Yet you do not know what your break is all about, only to feel that the entire world has left you behind. Are they actually running? You don’t know, yet you think you HAVE to run. You run with full steam pushing and shoving people around as if they will never catch up with you. You don’t have time to explain to anyone. Coz you know you cannot Stop coz they are still chasing you. Who are they? You still don’t know.


You look at the clock it’s still ticking. You feel when you reach THERE you will get a better view- It will all be OK. You don’t know what it looks like yet you want to reach there. You have left most of them behind now or rather derailed them. But you still aren’t there. You only know you are somewhere close to THERE. So you start compromising. You start compromising saying it will all come back to me. You want it all to come to you. You start hatching new schemes to reach there with people you never knew before. Coz now you cannot stop Running. You are hooked on to it.


When you reach THERE you find the view is not what you expected it to be. Now you want to see more since you see the clock is still ticking. Now you want a NEW THERE. So you run again. This time with all your past and self confessed learning and wisdom. You no more want to be with the people you were with before. Every time you want a new costume and a new stage.
With lots of wear and tear you reach the NEW THERE. It’s good but not appealing as the next THERE. So you compromise & run again with the same people you hatched schemes with. This continues till you reach a spot where you see that people are no longer the same. All of them want to OWN the new THERE. So you fight this time with all your might only to find that you have been pushed and shoved around this time. So you go back to the OLD THERE since you find yourself incapable of moving ahead.


The OLD THERE no longer exists. Shattered you go back to on a reverse Trail to find all your OLD THERE. With much anguish you muster all your courage and go back to the OLD THERE only to be disappointed again. You still run. Finally you reach a terrain that looks familiar. You see familiarly unfamiliar faces. You feel you know them yet you do not know them. What kind of ambivalence is this? Finally you find a mirror that beckons you. You look into and this time you see a perfect stranger standing in front of you. You almost scream with tears rolling down your eyes. Everything comes back to you in a flash.


You hear a distant voice. Someone is shaking you. You wake up and find the same mirror in front of you. You look a little old, some wrinkles are there on your face, you have put on weight, you tummy shows, you sag. You look positively ghastly. But when you look around you find some questioning eyes? It’s your family. You feel relieved & jump out of joy. You smile & hug every one of them only to realize that you had a nightmare.


You continue on your routine and this time you don’t run. You sprint with joy coz you don’t need any more nightmares to tell you how to reach THERE coz You are already THERE.

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