I looked out at the misty view from my window seat in the bus. It was raining hard. There is such a comfort in being cocooned in the air-conditioned atmosphere-not drenched from head to feet. One of life's truly, often understated joy. I was utterly and completely dry; and therefore at a liberty, and in the mood, to enjoy the beauty of a rain-washed world. Things looked beautiful when you were not all wet and squishy and muddy. I stared at the grey cemented structure of the bridge forever under construction. We had been stuck here for close to ten minutes now, but the bus had just started moving albeit at a snail's pace. Still it would be better not to look at the watch every ten seconds. I was not going home any sooner. It will be a while. Oddly, the thought did not unsettle me. This long commute was often the only part of the day when I was completely alone and free. No errands to run, no hands of clock running me around. This was the time when my mind wandered nestled in a bubble of thought that even though a little late, I was heading home .
The bus moved a short distance and a random graffiti came into my sight. 'Love to be hated !' One of those rebellious random statements of the growing up years which in hindsight seemed made you squirm or smile indulgently at a memory of times gone by. 'Do you love to be hated?' How can there be a yes or no answer to that ! Depending upon who is hating me, depending on how close I am to that person, whether I am aware of the reasons for the hatred and whether I think those reasons are justified, I may feel sad, guilty even, angry, indifferent or a gamut of other emotions.
I do this often; give rambling replies to seemingly simple queries. Unless the question is a factual one( hopefully a mathematical query not involving probabilities because that too seems vague to me), straight answers seem impossible for me to give. Its not because I want to appear smart. That's a moot point ;) But I hate pseudo intellectuals- people who digress from topics, merely to show they have more words to say on the topic of discussion, no matter how far they stray from the issue in doing so. And therefore, I'd despise myself if accidentally or on purpose I sound like one of such people.
But its true that I rarely give straight forward answers. Its never a yes or no. However, that's mainly because that's how I believe most things in life are; especially when it comes to our emotions and other subjective experiences. Never simple, easy, neatly cut out. Its never binary-our feelings, our emotional reactions,our perceptions of things both emotional and physical-can never truly be accurately quantified or put into definite compartments.
That's how our individuality is shaped. That's why no two lives are the same; at best they can be similar in some ways. Our experiences modify our vision of what we see, feel around us. Two things never quite add up the same way for everyone and so most doubts we have about our lives, our feelings, can never be resolved in a single shot. At best we try to find our way through this vague, cluttered, sometimes hiding unbidden sources of wonderment , journey called life and live each day at a time, ever ready to be taken by surprise...
That's how our individuality is shaped. That's why no two lives are the same; at best they can be similar in some ways. Our experiences modify our vision of what we see, feel around us. Two things never quite add up the same way for everyone and so most doubts we have about our lives, our feelings, can never be resolved in a single shot. At best we try to find our way through this vague, cluttered, sometimes hiding unbidden sources of wonderment , journey called life and live each day at a time, ever ready to be taken by surprise...
