The conductor traverses across the length of the bus looking at his either side while feverishly clicking away his clipper to gain attention. “Ticket Ticket” he screams. “Banni, illi ticket?” he asks. I wave out to him and mouth “ITPL” from a distance. He hands out a receipt to me and grabs the 50 rupee note from my hand. I try to tell him that he ought to return 3 rupees to me. My cries fall on deaf ears. I tear the ticket in retaliation and toss it out of the window. “Excuse me?” I hear someone faintly call out to me. “You, mister! Yes, you!” she reaches out and taps on my shoulder. I unplug my earphones to understand the matter. Blown away by her beauty, I make an effort to comprehend her words. Her mouth moves in slow motion in my imagination. She seems agitated, I can tell from the frown between her eyebrows. “Click!” She snaps her fingers to regain my attention. “How can you be so irresponsible?” She asks. I shrug, not being able to understand the context. She rolls her eyes and ...
I wasn’t feeling my usual self for these last couple of months. Reading has taken a backseat forever and lethargy seems to have taken over. I do occasionally devour some light-hearted stuff from Chetan Bhagat or Nancy Drew(I know, cringeworthy!) but the idea is to do what I like, and not what I am supposed to do. The pressure to live upto the expectations that I have set for myself is gut-wrenching at times, however, what’s life without these set of rules? I would just be an aimless soul wandering through the streets of the ‘oh-so-familiar’ life. Speaking of wanderings, it appears that lives have resumed to normal for many. I gauge this from the general sentiment over my social media feed. Remember how each of us had turned into some sort of a social media junkie in 2020? I have lost count of the number of folks who had resolved to pick up some form of talent and monetise it over Youtube, Insta or blogger. I myself had resorted to exploring various forms of my talent like exercise...