23rd june, friday

11.15pm, Hill Road, Bandra
old man sitting in the middle of the road. stark naked, covered with his own shit. people driving their cars around him and pretending he is invisible. for a split second the idea of getting down form the rick and helping him crosses my mind. then I look away. close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.

11.30pm, Carter Road, Bandra:
rick breaks down. driver tries to fix it . gives up. he is from malad and doesn't know how to get it fixed here. I wait 15mins while he calls his mechanic, his friend and his home from my phone. nobody agrees to come and rescue him. two guys standing behind us starts passing lewd remarks. he tries to beat them up. stop him. he tries to return the fare money. stop him. he gets me another rickshaw. come home without any further adventure.

I need some sleep.

baggage

Things happened. Bad things. Most of the time you didn’t have any control over them. Yes, when look back today you think : I should have done this and shouldn’t have done that. But then hindsight is always 20-20, isn’t it?

So what do you do about these incidents? Forget them, hang on to them or learn from them and move on?

I know they are bad things. They shouldn’t have happened in the first place. They were unfair, scary, traumatizing. They hurt you so much. But they did happen, right! Life doesn’t have ‘control+Z’ button and that can’t be changed now. Can’t you just forget them? I know that’s not easy. And maybe you should not forget them. Maybe that way you will make sure they don’t happen again.

Or do you just hang onto it? Live with the fear that these bad things are going to happen to you any moment all over again? That there is someone out there out to get you? Do you just live with that fear every moment of the rest of your life?

How long can you go on like that? How many bad memories can you afford to keep on the top of your mind till they colour the good ones too. Till they spread to people around you. People who love you. People who care. Till they also start living with those demons in their heads. They tip toe around you, afraid to talk too loudly in case that sets off one of those demons. Whenever they do anything around you they are half expecting you to say: “oh please never never do that. I can’t handle it. Something happened to me once….”

Baby,I know. they really did happen. And it still hurts. Hug hug hug.

But isn’t it time to try to let go and move on baby. Isn’t it time to stop running and face life.

bliss

the only thing that stopped me from jumping in was my camera :)