I undertook my first travel in a bullock cart on a dirt track between two teeming villages in the hinterland of Bihar. That was the Bihar of darkness. Having been in a deep slumber despite its bountiful energy for centuries. Yet to wake up and realise what it is like to be awake, to be alive! The only sound breaking the monotony of the sound of the cart and the buzz of the jungle around would be the call of the driver hollering the oxen to move faster. That's what I guess, having retraced the journey a few times, for the first time around I must have been only a few months young!
Life never came easy. Those were the days of scarcity. The most scarce were feelings, for scarcity has the immense ability to scald emotions beyond recognition. One went on nevertheless.
A youngster was still protected. Protected from his harsh surroundings, protected from the dry dreary world of the grown ups. He was but an adjunct to the world inhabited by the elders. He was there because he was supposed to be, a natural progression of the social bindings. No more no less.
In this milieu one grew up faster than one otherwise would.
Meandering through the various lanes and bylanes one reached one's destined highway or runway as the case might be. I have been no exception.
Along the way I made and unmade friends, entered into relationships, moved places and generation! At thirty five, I am a father, a husband, a subordinate, a colleague, a brother, a son, a friend, a confidante, and so on so forth. Among such a multiplicity of tags, it seems the only thing I seem to have misplaced is me!
My yet longest journey, to the other side of the globe, seems to be bringing such a tidal sweep of feelings! Is it time I undertook another one? One deep inside?
Sent from my iPhone
Life never came easy. Those were the days of scarcity. The most scarce were feelings, for scarcity has the immense ability to scald emotions beyond recognition. One went on nevertheless.
A youngster was still protected. Protected from his harsh surroundings, protected from the dry dreary world of the grown ups. He was but an adjunct to the world inhabited by the elders. He was there because he was supposed to be, a natural progression of the social bindings. No more no less.
In this milieu one grew up faster than one otherwise would.
Meandering through the various lanes and bylanes one reached one's destined highway or runway as the case might be. I have been no exception.
Along the way I made and unmade friends, entered into relationships, moved places and generation! At thirty five, I am a father, a husband, a subordinate, a colleague, a brother, a son, a friend, a confidante, and so on so forth. Among such a multiplicity of tags, it seems the only thing I seem to have misplaced is me!
My yet longest journey, to the other side of the globe, seems to be bringing such a tidal sweep of feelings! Is it time I undertook another one? One deep inside?
Sent from my iPhone
