Replay.....

It was another one of those times when you felt life was in the replay mode...

It was the same village...mounted high up in the hills...With the smell of the heavens oozing out of every street....People looking very affable...waiting to serve u at the cost of their lives...Those up hill and down hill travels were all too familiar for words...

There was the same monsterous weapon of mass destruction..it had haunted me the previous time....I was wrong to have wished it gone now...coz it was back...Howling the lives out of innocent visitors...these rickshaws knew no fear...autos that decided the fate of their passer bys...They hadnt changed...

The man's face was a distant memory...but this one sent back shivers....there was that weird feelin within that was tellin me to warn my companion...to remind him that it was wrong...to let him live back the then when it had all happened....to tell him to get out...before it was too late....

We sat snug in the vehicle...the driver looked up at the heavens and laughed....my heart began to beat harder...i felt that crunch that sucks your soul out of you..i could feel it comin any minute....

And there it was...I knew it..it happened....as it had the last time...The squabble broke out from a nothing...I hadnt remembered why the last time too...but it was worsenin...and the final blow..that sent him flying out of the rick...

What happened next and how i reached him is a distant memory...i cant get down to the details in my head...but as i knelt and looked down on him...lying there helples....with blood oozing out from the face that had lit up the life in me....i lost it all...

I panicked for starters...Here was my life, lying there wounded, hurt, most probably because of me..and i wasnt doing anythin....i looked around...the all so pleasant mountain village dint seem half as inviting now...walker bys stopped to stare at the mass of bleeding flesh that lay below...and seemed to care the least...i could see backs turnin to us and walkin away...what was wrong...? wouldnt somebody help a hurt in this world..?

No..! i was not gonna depend on others to save this man lying here...It took no herculian effort to mount him in my arms...and i ran....god knows where though....Throughout my run for life, i peered down into those eyes...a pair that was searching for life...that was knocking on heaven's doors...but fighting to get back...for there was a life to be lived....

I heard myself scream to him...wishing that he would hear...i begged him to not let go....i scremed at the heavens...to not take him with them...no this could not happen...i ran down those pristine white corridors...with him lying frail like a lump in my arms...

Ran straight through the doors...and OUt...!! I sat up ram-rod straight....It had happend again...the same dream...the same plea....the same door that i woke up at....

I lay awake in bed for the rest of the night...Praying....!

Early mornin awakenings....

I totally agreed with all my projectmates, who bade me goodbye at some part of the night, that it was madness do have done this....nothing could ve justified what i was doing...and it was after 17 straight hours in the office, with Ozzy and James instigating me to wake up, that I was beginning to feel the stupidity....

The walk back to the bus stand was a dazy stomp past the world that was waking up to a bright saturday...The scene at the bus stop was all the more "new" to me....Never before had I seen these many florists adorn that dinjy stop....It had always been in the wee hours of the night that i had stood here, with the noisome citizens rulin the lot..So the tranformation to this pleasant picture was a shock...

The wait seemed too long for words...it might be that time seems to pass by real slow when you have sleep knocking your lids and u still cant welcome him in..

So there i stood, hollow eyed, when i first caught sight of him....Now this "him" that i refer to is surely not to be misinterpreted as the so called 'man of my dreams' or 'the one' or whatever in that fashion....He is this small kid, henceforth our Hero, a ten or eleven i assumed...walkin steadfast with a mission in his eyes...He carried a sack filled with odd shaped utils on his tiny head....I could feel the crux on that tender thing in the way he shifted the weight around every few seconds...

He wore a loose baggy shirt and an equally frail pair of trousers...They were bought with plans for the future, i thought. My mind immediately noticed the new pair of jeans i wore, and so fervently complained of for not being the right ones...Back to observing the guy, i caught sight of the little clasp formed in his hands...he was holding something very dear in those little hands...something that he would not let go of for good...I felt it...

He walked aimlessly for a minute...then headed straight for the florist closest to me...The scene wasnt close enough for me to hear them out though....I could see our hero hesitate in front of the make shift shop for a minute..then hold out his hand to the florist..still tightly clutched in him...and mutter something feebly....The notice shifted to the second party of the conversation....she had been a bright cheer to look at a minute back...but the minute the hero had delivered his part, the change in her mannerism was more than obvious....A frown adorned her face and with a quick sweep of her hand, she gestured the boy to move away....She considered it meaningless to express her feelings in words i felt..

He looked down in grief..a sense of embarrasment and moved away....he retraced his path....went back to where he came from....and i continued to start at the beauty of the roads....

These guys have their own knack of creating art out of their mouthly excretions...yes i choose to use that word, coz thats how disgusting that whole process is...It all over...the only difference being the color and the intensity of each color....nothin more...Come what may, they choose not to give up their rights..their democratic priviledge to make the world their home...And they blame the govt for not being good to them..Had i the power in the smallest sense...I'd catch all these offenders and shoot them in public....

I swore at my thoughts being such prodigals...Give them an exit and they decide to wander at their free will....Back with control over my flow, I saw him again...I got that eerie feeling of a de javu...Was it a dream..? Had I seen the future...? Coz it was the same guy, with the same sack mounted on his head, with that same clasped hand....

This time it was a newer florist...The same murmured conversation and the same sway of the hand from the receiver...The same look down on earth....

It hurt me to think of what might be going through that little mind...Were his thoughts wandering too..? Cursing his poor plight..?

I wondered what it was that he wanted from the florist, that was too much for that damned person to part with...Was it poverty to that level that he couldnt afford to buy flowers with what he had...? He had to buy it though..there was no option of going back home without it..For he didnot give up, come how many denials....Why did those flowers mean so much to him...? Why did he have to fight such a battle to get such a trivial thing....?

He wandered off to another florist..a new proposal..the same denial..my eyes followed...Hunted him out of the busy morning market...It hurt....It ached to be so helpless..I wanted to catch that little guy and hand him a note of ten...am sure that would have solved his worry....He passed by another time....I stared right at him...Hoping for him to stop a minute...so that i could quietly slip the note into him...But he hurried by...Another offer...He wouldnt give up at all...

My bus slowly came in....the junta rushed to satisfy their right to sit in a crowded bus....I let the crowd take me along....Throughout the process of being force lifted into the bus(believe me..the crowd in bombay is capable of doin it, irrespective of ur build..!) I followed the guy...The sack relocated another time and a new proposal....

The bus pulled out and so did the hero out of my vision....I was ashamed...I felt responsible for leaving that little kid there, begging for flowers to take back home...I felt responsible for stealing the innocence out of his childhood.....I cried....

The conductor gave me a confused stare....I pulled out a fresh ten to buy my ticket back to security.....

I cried...