Short Story
He
was about to leave for his office when it suddenly came to him that he had to
make that call.
It
was around 9 AM and it was the time.
But
he could not proceed in that melee of the metropolitan crowd that had engulfed his
life – and life of everyone whom he knew – people like him who had left their
roots behind to make a life for them.
Now
it is a borrowed life at best.
This
‘important call’ was just one of many prices he was paying for a piece of land
in the sky of this big city that he called him home – a home that had started
confusing him now.
He
could not make it then – the call.
And
he was not sure whether it would stay with him to remind him later that he had
something important pending to do – a call that was from his personal
relations.
When
it would happen with him initially, he would feel greatly disturbed.
But
with time, that feeling of restlessness gave way to a nonchalant but passable
attitude.
He
didn’t intend for it. He didn’t ask for it. But he didn’t found himself in the
position to say no. It was the life that he had made in this city that forced
this attitude in his lifestyle.
He
had not come to this big city with dreams of making it big.
And
it is the story of millions who are forced to migrate to big cities looking for
their threads of life that they fail to get where they are born.
Yes,
all they want is a life – not a big pie in the social circles of Metro cities
that is both, welcoming and hostile.
All
they want is a way to earn their living – that they cannot have where they came
from.
They
are accepted as they add to the economic spokes of the city but they also
become the easy targets whenever the big city faces some human crisis. Millions,
who rent out their lives, while living in rented accommodations, are forced to
get so much absorbed in their borrowed lives that the feeling of permanence
becomes a fleeting expectation that they even do not want to think of.
He
used to think deeply on these lines.
But
not anymore!
Not
because he doesn’t want to.
Because
he doesn’t get time to think such things that take many hours away from his
daily routine – a routine that gives him sustenance – but doesn’t show him any
purpose.
Yes,
he knew that he had left thinking on those themes a long ago. ‘Aim of life’, ‘objective’,
‘purpose’, these used to be realistic words when he had come to this city. When
they became ‘big’ words he didn’t realise.
To
continue..