Hello lovely readers.
After being terribly behind
schedule and having not posted anything since the start of 2017, I have finally
gathered myself to publish this short story abstract that I wrote sometime
back. I hope you enjoy it the way I did.
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The traffic outside was suffocating.
I was waiting for the bus and so were the other half a dozen people leaving
from office, watching the cars jam, listening to the not so musical delight of
drivers honking all the way. As if the harder they honked, more the number of
vehicles would vanish from their lane.
The rattle of engines and the heat was
making it unbearable to stand any further. So I decided to walk the kilometer
stretch to the railway station and catch the 08:46 pm local. As I briskly
walked the regular route I couldn’t help but notice the slowly inching traffic,
air that smelled of diesel, petrol, cigarette & sweat and how the single
lane was brimming with vehicles.
While there were hundreds of people
passing by, some walking like me, others enjoying an air conditioned bumpy ride
in their Ola and Uber, none of them seemed to be bothered to see who walked by,
which vehicle was standing next to theirs or if there was a suspicious looking
man at the corner of the road, possibly a suicide bomber waiting for right
moment, for the perfect set of ignorant educated class to arrive and click the
secret button somewhere down his pocket, making the bomb go Booooooooom!
None of this seemed to cross the
minds of people, whose faces I was looking at and trying hard to read. I
wondered, what they must be thinking of. What to make for dinner? Planning a night
out with friends? Some were probably in a hurry to reach home before time and
catch up on their daily soap operas? The more I looked at them, the more I was intrigued.
It always was my favorite pass time. Reading those faces, I mean.
This reminds me, the other day I
caught a fast local to Andheri on a Tuesday morning, which surprisingly was
barely crowded and I earned myself a place to sit too! Mumbai locals never fail
to surprise you. Don’t they?
I looked to my right, and skimmed
through the houses that went by, chancing half a second glances into the lives
of so many people. I saw a woman cooking in one house, Television switched on,
in many others.
When I turned left, every single
passenger in there was glued to their mobile phones and tabs, as if that was the
only real world that existed. As if taking their eyes off might trigger a
series of nuclear disasters.
A loud thud from a truck brought me
back to reality. I didn’t realize when I missed my turn and kept walking. Sweat
trickled down my left brow. I could feel a trickle down my lower back too. I
stopped to catch up on my breath. Then smiled, I don’t know why. My father used
to say I have an over active imagination.
I let the trucks cross, wrapped up my
reading-the-faces business and increased my pace, and started running in the direction
of the railway station, for it was 08:44 already.
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More to this story will be released
in bits and parts, “Terribly short Chapters” actually. :)
Would love to know your views and
feedback if any.
Cheers!
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