@ The Botherline

I was squeezed in the backseat of a car and was chewing over the movie I had just seen. Power-full. Then the people with me started a conversation that I despise being a part of. They talked about how each day goes on, life goes on and nothing changes, their monotonous routines, how they wake up to nothing new or exciting each morning. The regular morning tea, the same type of bath routine and rituals, same lunch in the same lunch boxes, same colleagues and their same habits, same clothes from new shops, same TV shows, the same plight.

They said they had not achieved anything in spite of working so hard each day over the years. And these were the people who own a cool sedan car, a comfy apartment and such other things that only the financially privileged could afford. And I thought, “you got what you were aiming for, what you worked for. If you have something else in mind then work for it, towards it.” I don’t know, so confusing? What did they really aspire to achieve? And I told them it is still not late, you can do so much and got a dull response. Well, I didn’t think much about it.

Until when they made bleak remarks on someone’s upbringing (someone very close to me) and how kids should be raised so they don’t get out of hand and that’s when I saw the darkest shade of red. They were being overcritical and I did not like that all, it made me sad and angry both at the same time. Not only because the subject was very close to me but also because how fair is it of someone who can’t take charge of their lives are trying to order someone else’s. What chutzpah! I simply looked out of the window, clutching my teeth, breathing rather heavily (so much that it almost pacified me) and tried not to pay attention but they wouldn’t stop talking.

Just then it struck me that these people mentioned a few moments back that they’re living pathetic lives and so why did I let the words of these people affect me? People who were tired of their sad lives, who were ungrateful for all things they had earned so far, who had no motivation or enthusiasm to do anything to turn their boring lives around, what better could they do or talk about other than passing empty mindless remarks at someone else’s way of living? Maybe talking ill about others made them feel slightly better about their own pathetic lives.

I welcome constructive criticisms and suggestions but I do not have any place for degrading, discouraging, and such other comments with a sense of mockery. I got back to feeling the cool breeze, inhaling the raw wet mud, witnessing a few jalfrezi of firecrackers and winning back my self-approval.