Little man

And as though there was plenty to lose, the dream, however short-lived and impulsive it was made its way into the black hole called future, unseen and unknown of. Like any other story of loss there was no one to cash this dream as well. The courses brought a tremble of excitement, the calculations a shock. Misprint, it should have been but it was not. It is a nice dramatic word, this word called ‘misprint’. A misprint of thoughts. A misprint of emotions. And a misprint of numbers. But as happens in all real-life-drama, there is no dramatic reaction to this one either. Every loss after all is a private suffering. It was just a soul awakening dream in a long-long time. Dreams seemed so distant against this backdrop of reality that they had parted long back. Yet it arrived and parted. And as it leaves I stand firm, rooted to this reality. Perhaps it is this reality that makes each dream differently; there is no common dream to be dreamt of. Maybe those who break those chains on their feet and soar high and make it to the moon someday…but most don’t ….and I am the most…. How true can the universal predicament of the ‘Little Man’ get than this? How real can reality get……

Escape from city life

I don’t know if it was the large number of juices, coffee and biscuit packets the lady kept on the counter which gave me the feeling or the ‘Cup Corn’ sold at Rs 50/cup outside Bhatbhateni but I was holding my neck time and again, as if I were going to throw up anytime while walking back home. We were there fulfill our bit of duties as the ‘21st century consumer’ ourselves still I was just feeling utterly stupid and frustrated being the consumer. “Let’s have some Kuiyeko banda( rotten cabbage)” I said and we took the Veg patties and we dug through the ‘Titaura’ section for lemon titaura but ended but up with ‘Papaya’ (which we figured out only the next day!). Once we were done with our food shopping we stood in front of the ‘Cup Corn’ stall and opted for masala. ‘Must be a 20 Rs meal” I thought. “Rs 50” she said to my utter disbelief! WTH was the first thing that crossed my mind but I pretended rich and coolly put the Rs 50 note on the counter as if I always believed that a cup of boiled corn mixed with ‘masala’ SHOULD be priced 50. She must have thought I had gone out of my mind but I gave her (not the Cup corn seller though) a bit of ‘consumerism’ dose: my own take and experiences of how ‘Bhatbhateni’ signifies a class of people itself and how it had become more inclusive of consumers in recent times as in these days people of all classes can be found there and some more blah blah and blahs…

Then on the bus I met another ‘Bhatbhateni’ shopper, a family of three, mother-father-son, didn’t look like the ‘Rahis’ shopper in Bhatbhateni (the one unloading her cart full of everything!) but managing life in KTM sort of middle class. The woman had a ‘too’ mellifluous voice while the man was a little ‘louder’ than necessary while the boy was simply disobedient. My observation of the family could be heavily influenced by my mood too which was “UGH consumerism Mode”. The little boy was having ice-cream and the mother was telling him it was ‘enough’ when there was only a tiny bit of it left. She took whatever was left of the ice-cream and threw it outside the window. And I thought “Well is that what you teach your child? To throw garbage out on the road from the bus window?” Next moment I was imagining the boy doing the same thing every time he went to and fro to school on the bus…ah is raising a child a joke? How negligent of the parent! And why the hell was I worrying of it? I am not the one planning a child. I carry my wrappers etc in my bag and throw it in dustbins (and can’t stop wondering how waste will be managed after that, beside which river will it be thrown?) I can’t stop thinking that ever since studying EIA ( Envt Impact Assessment) and that visit to a waste management center in Yokohoma where they produced electricity by burning waste….Oh what difference do such thoughts of mine make? Whatever the case, I was seriously ‘wakka’ of everything in sight the crowd of people in the bus, the usual traffic jam, the couple making shopping plans and just everything…

On the way to Santaneshwor Mahadev