Scene 1
You're traveling back from your home to college, even though you don't want to.
You’re sitting on the window seat on the bus.
You’re surrounded by about 40 strangers.
No one knows a thing about you.
You’re alone and not alone at the same time.
A cool breeze along with a light rain shower is setting the mood.
As usual, the earphones are plugged in deep.
Your perfectly crafted playlist is playing.
It’s been a rough few weeks. You have been trying really hard to keep up a clear mind.
You’re now on the outskirts of the city. And it’s raining, like a light shower. Along comes a cool breeze.
It’s slowly wetting your hands. But you don’t want to close the shutter. A few drops have fallen over your eyes.
It’s almost midnight, but you don’t want to close your eyes. You want to brace and feel it. You want to feel it all. Every drop of it, every wave of cool air passing by you. You want this night to never end.
And you realize there’s this happiness coming outta nowhere.
You’re smiling, and you don’t know why.
There are no negative thoughts on your mind.
You don’t give a damn about the exam you’ve got tomorrow.
You don’t care about the football match you’ve got tomorrow.
You don’t care about the past or the future.
You're here now, and you're alive.
“Ultimate freedom”, you whispered to yourself.
Scene 2
You’re sitting on the bench near the windows.
It’s raining heavily.
You're trying very hard to keep your eyes open. Sometimes you can’t control it so your head goes down.
You don’t want to be here.
You keep checking your watch.
Every minute feels like an hour.
You wish if you could just close your eyes, and just like that, you’d be gone.
It’s Mechanics of fluids lecture.
The lecturer is very excitedly talking about flowing water and God-knows-what associated with it. It seems she’s very proud of her subject.
You hate yourself now.
You close your eyes and think about all the wrong decisions you took that had led you here.
You are an idiot.
You wish if you could just drop out of college and learn something that you actually love, like in the movies.
You want to jump from the third floor, and when you wake up you want to be new.
You’re thinking of worst-case scenarios that are gonna happen if you drop out.
You’ve already lost a year. Plus two years, it’s not gonna be easy.
You feel something on your legs. Your friend is urging you to wake up. The lecturer is staring at you from the platform.
She’s like, “Dude, I’m teaching something very interesting and important here, and you want to sleep, in the first period?”
You put on a faint smile and apologize.
You really don’t want to be here.
This is not where you belong.
Even if you try, it’s really hard to concentrate on these lectures.
You’re crying inside.
Oh f**k, What have you become?
Who told you we came into this world to be happy?
There are these lines from a documentary that you had learned by heart, just in case.
You say to yourself,
I do not know how I managed to reach this point, how I have reached this point in my life.
But I continue moving ahead, slowly, moving ahead, and some glimpses of happiness and beauty come my way, by chance, when I do not even expect it...
You doze off again......
(*Here's to fools who dream. Don't try)
Scene 3
Mother, I'm home.
You're back home after almost 5 weeks. It's the longest you've ever been from home.
You enter into your room and you realize nothing's much changed. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. Maybe the only thing that changed is you.
Your 2-year-old nephew wants you to hug him. He seems so happy to see you.
He tells you about the rat that they'd caught yesterday and how'd they buried it. He tells you that he'd learned to put on his trousers by himself, and also the shoes. He tells you about the preschool that he's gonna go to. He tells you that he had forgotten his blue crocs at a relative's house and that he wanted to show it to you.
After telling so much, he remembers something. He rushes to the refrigerator and brings you a tin of sweets that his uncle had bought.
He looks exactly like you from your childhood photos.
Hey, there's your 5-month-old niece. You haven't been around much after she was born. She keeps staring at you like she doesn't know you.
She looks like your father, round head and the nose, yeah definitely. You take her in your hand. She's really light. She keeps pinching your nose. And oh yes, baby's heads do really smell nice. You wonder why can't everybody use the same lotion or shampoo or whatever.
Fish Biriyani's ready for you at the table.
Smells nice, tastes nice.
Isn't it good to be back home?
Isn't great that there exist a little bunch of people who love you more than anything?
And the funny thing is you're still searching for reasons to be happy when it's right there in front of you.
It was right there all the time.
Sayonara.
***
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