"Jeena humko raas na aaya, phir jaane kyon jeete hai?"....floated out the voice of Lata Mangeshkar (from the movie Raat Aur Din) from my Worldspace Radio, late into the night. It was 10:30, a few minutes after the lights had come back following the mandatory powercut (it never happens so late in any other area, according to my utterly knowledgeable sister). The song set me thinking - do we really know the life that we are living?
There are a few moments every day, when we sometimes stop to reflect on small incidents that perhaps change our whole day. Today it happened to me again. It was evening as I sat in the vast coffee corner in the campus, busily clickety-clacking on the precious laptop that today fills my life. A few minutes later, I heard a couple of voices. They were that of some friends whom i did not even know existed anymore. "What are you doing here?" they asked - not reproachful, but filled with surprise and warmth in seeing a face that had forgotten them. There was no hint of acrimony or animosity in their voice. For a moment, i tried to recollect when i had spoken to them the last time, and not surprisingly, I found that I didnot remember. These were not people from the past - for "past" is not a word we can use for times recently passed. These were people with whom I had shared jokes, had laughed with and confided in, a few years back. And now when I had acquired new friends, I had conveniently forgotten them. As we continued our conversation, I felt something tug at my heart. This was not perhaps what I had wanted...
Long after they had left for the day, I sat there wondering about my experience. A new thought stuck me...It was not what I had wanted, but it was something that I had ALLOWED to happen. Sitting here at home, once again in front of the laptop, I can remember a few more forgotten faces I had passed by, somewhere on the road to success. Perhaps tomorrow someone would return the favour to me. We always like to say that we live in the present, conveniently ignoring that it was the past that shaped our present and today's present would be tomorrow's past.
It is almost midnight now. Time for me to sleep. Tomorrow, when I walk forward, I will look back over my shoulder at the people whom I walked past, and smile - a smile full of recognition and friendship - and hope that they smile back at me.
If you are reading this now, it is because I remember you. I hope you too feel the same
