[](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7GLQ7zjnq7I/VYxuPTOqm2I/AAAAAAAABh8/gg_5K8iWldk/s640/blogger- image-1235241482.jpg)
Everyday, after college I would walk home with my friends. Wandering around and talking about future. What will we do? How will we be? How much will we change? Ideas! Ambitions! Life!!!
Everything always tumbled down to a cup of tea at a near by shop, where we were regular visitors. A sip of tea and bunch of thought provoking questions and contradictions. All intelligent and weird minds searching for the answer to a common question - the meaning of life. Trying to find that right path towards salvation. Complete Consciousness!!
Now and then we would simply get lost within ourselves, in the midst of the crowd. Thoughts wandering far beyond the time frame. Everyone building their life on their own dimensions. Confident. Lost. But hopeful.
Like some lost sailors on a boat, every one of us would be looking at different directions hoping to see some signs of calling. But then we wouldn't find any. "What are we searching for ?", would be one damning question in every one's mind. But the pattern would repeat itself and we would find ourselves in a never ending loop, looking at different directions with our backs facing each other.
It was an isolated space we had created for ourselves, safe from the outer worlds. I think that is what friendship does, isn't it? It creates a space within this chaos of life, where we find ourselves secure and submerged to own-self. A space untouched by the judgments and its overpowering expectations. But for how long?
With the stretch of time, the space would soon collapse into the fabric of social norms exposing each of our vulnerabilities and weaknesses. A bubble of cocoon waiting to burst dropping us into the ocean ruled by sharks. And here in the arena of death, we all would find our own harbor. A war of life!
All these thoughts would connect us telepathically when we are not together, creating a surreal experience of becoming invisible in the crowd. But again, for how long?
At times, I would find myself disconnected and standing alone, facing the wilderness of the world. Alone, but among crowds, waiting for the right bus to come and take me home.
These rides would be just as experiential as a conversation with the philosophers of the world. Dangling with people, popping out of all the open spaces, bus would come screeching at you. As people struggled and jostled towards the opening of the portal, I would distant myself to observe and wait for the bus with the right number. Is it even coming?
Like a trained sales person conductors would scare you that its the last bus tonight, no more is coming for you. But the experience has already told me to ignore them in disbelieve. He is totally lying, I would say to myself. How is it even possible? There has to be the bus with the right number coming for me. Its only 8 PM. I would then wait in the darkness.
Time can be cruel, specially as the darkness begins and struggles for its own existence. Often I would wonder, should I have just rode on that last bus, no matter what? It would have at least taken me somewhere - safe and sound.
Then, I didn't realize much, but when I think about it now. May be I was waiting for one of those Hayao Miyazaki's magical cat from "My Neighbor Totoro" to come and pick me up, take me to the world of dreams. Ya exactly the same way.
But I would always end up riding a bit early in one of those dangling bus, defeated by the wait - not really the friendly Totoro which I expected. Among the midst of human slaves, I would find myself indifferent. Its one of the contradiction of a society, which I find amusing. Some how we can always cocoon ourselves within our own existence. People generally blame technology for this indifference but its there, inherent within ourselves. Over time, the technology has only replaced the anchor of safety, but the anchor has always existed. The anchor that holds our emotions safe within the confine parameter of control. If that anchor is loosened I am not sure what kind of emotional calamity the world will have to face.
Faces filled with experience and sorrow. I have never seen a face that carries the experience of happiness, its always that long scar of sorrow that we all carry. Even behind a smiling face, lies some untold stories. The ways we carry our sorrows are different than the ways we carry our happiness. Happiness is like a shooting star, it comes and goes within seconds. Sometime you even doubt yourself, if it even existed. But sorrows are like billions and trillions of stars just staring at you every night, watching you and making you watch them in return. You will never be able to run away from them.
I am never sure what we wait for the most - for the sun to rise, or for it to set. Thoughtful contemplation!
And sometime I would just wait and wait. But there would be no bus to take me home. Like a soldier who had lost a battle, I would walk all the way back to home. I am not sure till today, if I wanted to get to home or somewhere else. But every night I would always end up in my room with a bag full of unanswered questions.
The fallacy of dream is that its unreal and based upon memories created through your weak senses. Its a place where the questions of the day would finally find itself slowly unraveled but wrapped into a mystic symbolism. Conflicts, fear and all your desires painted into a canvas like some abstract art.
Neither you nor the painter can understand the meaning behind it. All your years of experiences is distilled into this one night's dream. And this abstract form of art is nothing but stacks of paintings layered one upon the other. Upon close observations you can notice fine brush strokes from your past, still clear and sharp. And just when you feel like you have understood, you are awaken from the dream with a fresh canvas of memory waiting to be filled by the day.
But what if at that moment of wait, you would not walk to your home and keep waiting. Even if the streets are cold and empty with an unbroken vow of silence, what if you didn't move an inch. Killing your every instinct to hide in your burrow, what if you stood there motionless like there was nothing to fear. What if all you had was your conviction that the right bus would come. And even if it didn't turn up at the dawn, would you still have guts to wait for it every other night?