Dusk and Dawn

Mumbai is a mad place and it is fascinating. Not as in your face as Delhi. It is subtle, it is welcoming, it is so obvious yet so contradictory. It does not have the history Delhi has and maybe Thank God for it.

I was traveling by a local train 9pm at night. Had been out to check out some flats for residence purpose. Few kids hopped aboard the train at some station along. Filled with their childish enthusiasm, they were creating quite a ruckus in the coach. They got down at the next station and ran along the train as it began to depart. Just when the train picked up speed they climbed back in the coach. Reminding me of the passions of youth, the futile actions of young. The carefree life that i left as i walked outside my college campus. How beautiful are the times gone by, how strange are the times you live in. No time to stand and stare now there is, and when you had the time who actually stand's and stare's. You rather run down some odd gully, play cricket in some street, let the wind blow through your hair and the sun tan you. What does a child know of letting the scenery, the surrounding seep in the body. And now when i want to , i have no time. As i let these thoughts run through my head, a middle aged guy looked at me and remarked 'look at these kids running wildly.' I smiled in response. He continued 'Shame on them. Their parents must have let them out thinking they are of to studies or tuition. What has become of kids nowadays.' Then it hit me, how different can humans perceive the same event. He was right in his own manner, he had kids at home who made the same excuse. What this event's significance was to him, was completely different from mine. A parent's concern, a father's worry who returns home late at night and has to take his child's statement as truth. This man was a child once, this man had been through his youth, this man had grown up. Will i too? Will i loose the shackles of youth and be free or forever get caught in the web of adulthood? Will i recognize the change or be one with it? Contradictions, stupid theories, when will it all end? Dusk and dawn are the same event just reversed in time.