The bhel wala at the corner, the kid working at the tea stall, the guy who sells matching blouse pieces to women, the girl who rubs her nose every time she passes me in office, the lady who talks animatedly over the phone, the paan chewing man at my mobile service shop, the rickshaw wala...what is their story? I see these people everyday. They occupy 0.00000000143% space of my conscious mind. That is, i notice them. At times. At times i am completely unaware. I sit in a rickshaw...am staring out into nothingness or talking on the phone. I am hardly aware of the man's face who drives me all the way to my destination. Not even when i pay him do i bother to look him in the face. He is faceless for me...as are the general "public" around me. People dashing to work...people ambling along...women with their duppatas's on their nose to stifle out unpleasant smells, a 6 year old on a big man's cycle...half standing to peddle it. Its nice to take in these visuals....with music to give rhythm to their movements...they all seem to sway at the same beat. The slow laughter, the hasty run, easy wave of hand...they all synchronize to form one beautiful display of everyday acts.
I give my own stories to them....put words to their muttering lips...guess their life crises on the basis of phone conversation snippets i hear. I give them a larger than life appeal and conjure images of aliens attacking them, loved one's breaking up, life threatening diseases engulfing them and give them happy - sad occasions to live, in my head....they live a life of their own in my head for precisely 6.36 min. Then the song playing catches my attention...or a friend calling brings me back to my own boring, grounded life.
Don't we all wish at times we were someone else?!
