The comfortable leg space and the inbuilt screen on the seat in front of him almost made him reminisce flight journeys of the past. He had never really found out if he had liked those journeys or just pushed through it under the influence of the underwhelming excitement that overtook him, every time he had left for his country of origin.
He had always considered flights home as a way to refuel, restart, and come back as a newer, and improved person. That had almost never worked, and he still refused to accept that those cathartic moments in people's lives were more fiction than fact. Despite the fact that life had found newer and comical ways to disprove him, he still held onto the hope of experiencing catharsis in his current trip home and a subsequent vacation to one of his potential retirement getaways.
Pressure built up in his ears and a child next to him wailed as the plane descended from its heights towards the runway. The plane vibrated under turbulence, more kids around him started to struggle under their seatbelts and a few enthusiastic passengers started to turn on their phones. Idiots, he thought, in his usual attitude towards the things people did that he found stupid, and corrected himself the next instant. He could almost hear his close friend's voice from inside the flight, chastising him.
It took few more screams, vibrations, and a mini nap for the plane's wheels to fall prey to friction and come to a screeching, draggy halt. Just like how he expected a trip to India to bring forth a change in his mindset, he often dreamed, hoped that his home country also underwent a change since his last visit. A breeze through immigration, a walk through the afternoon heat that made his face feel like it was being pulled through a tub of hot water, and a minor scuffle in the taxi stand later, he was tucked in with his bag and luggage, inching towards his home while his hopes of a huge improvement in the cities conditions deflated.
Yes, there was the metro, something that everyone in the city had looked forward too for the past few years. That had in no way reduced the traffic in the roads. Along with the metro tracks, there were the expensive cars looking out of place as they moved ahead of his taxi on the dusty, smoke filled roads. There were still people using their motorcycles, whipping in between vehicles, finding rather innovative paths to skip past the cars ahead of them to reach their desired destinations a few minutes earlier, for some important reason.
Amidst these vehicles on roads, there was the cities population, trying to keep to the footpaths, even though there was only a broken, jagged, and brownish mess. This mass had the average worker, rushing back to his or her office after lunch and the occasional school kid with a bag which was starting to look bigger every year. Then there were the others, those people with unknown jobs and unfathomable purposes, proceeding towards their destinations all over the city. They made up the background noise of his journey.
The sheer variety of the population and the amount of people that slipped past him outside the car amazed him. It was only few years back, that he had also been a part of the same crowd, living in the same conditions. Now, he wanted to fix it, he wanted to fix the whole city. He looked out of his window as the traffic ground to a stand-still at a congested intersection at the people walking past his taxi.
He could not help but feel the need to delve into each of their lives, understand their objectives, learn from their achievements, listen to their fears, ask about their opinions, and enlist their help in fixing the city. The potential for a heroic journey in the thought excited him for a sweet, sweet moment before the eventuality of the failure weighed him down, making him want to sink down into the cushion, and hide in between the folds.
His mind threw countless arguments asking him not to have these thoughts on the first day of his vacation and depress himself. There was no way he was going to have the chance to save anything in the city, and those who could save it were busy slinging blame at each other instead of passing policies in the parliament. One argument led to a question, and that question led to another problem, which was the start of the unstoppable spiral towards pensive contemplation, that went very close to abject depression.
The taxi turned into a road free of clutter or traffic and sped past a popular industrial park, where people young and old were going to earn their daily wages, contributing fuel to the economic engine. Outside the park, a collection of cleaners were sweeping the roads, with a bright smile plastered on their faces. The change of environment, provided him a small thread to hang on, and climb out of the depression well. It reminded him of an old lesson, in a new way.
He realised, that his problem was wanting to fix all of the problems in the world. There were already people, who in their own way, were fixing the world. All he had to do was choose one problem, work hard on that problem, and try his hardest to fix it. If he could not fix it, there were always people behind him, who will give their best efforts to solve it. If he failed, there were always people ready to clean up his failure and tackle the problem from a different angle. If only that was an easy task...
PS- Wow that was intense :"D or... was it? I had this post messing my brain up for a looong time.
PPS - Of course, the usual disclaimer to ignore any errors in the prose.
He had always considered flights home as a way to refuel, restart, and come back as a newer, and improved person. That had almost never worked, and he still refused to accept that those cathartic moments in people's lives were more fiction than fact. Despite the fact that life had found newer and comical ways to disprove him, he still held onto the hope of experiencing catharsis in his current trip home and a subsequent vacation to one of his potential retirement getaways.
Pressure built up in his ears and a child next to him wailed as the plane descended from its heights towards the runway. The plane vibrated under turbulence, more kids around him started to struggle under their seatbelts and a few enthusiastic passengers started to turn on their phones. Idiots, he thought, in his usual attitude towards the things people did that he found stupid, and corrected himself the next instant. He could almost hear his close friend's voice from inside the flight, chastising him.
It took few more screams, vibrations, and a mini nap for the plane's wheels to fall prey to friction and come to a screeching, draggy halt. Just like how he expected a trip to India to bring forth a change in his mindset, he often dreamed, hoped that his home country also underwent a change since his last visit. A breeze through immigration, a walk through the afternoon heat that made his face feel like it was being pulled through a tub of hot water, and a minor scuffle in the taxi stand later, he was tucked in with his bag and luggage, inching towards his home while his hopes of a huge improvement in the cities conditions deflated.
Yes, there was the metro, something that everyone in the city had looked forward too for the past few years. That had in no way reduced the traffic in the roads. Along with the metro tracks, there were the expensive cars looking out of place as they moved ahead of his taxi on the dusty, smoke filled roads. There were still people using their motorcycles, whipping in between vehicles, finding rather innovative paths to skip past the cars ahead of them to reach their desired destinations a few minutes earlier, for some important reason.
Amidst these vehicles on roads, there was the cities population, trying to keep to the footpaths, even though there was only a broken, jagged, and brownish mess. This mass had the average worker, rushing back to his or her office after lunch and the occasional school kid with a bag which was starting to look bigger every year. Then there were the others, those people with unknown jobs and unfathomable purposes, proceeding towards their destinations all over the city. They made up the background noise of his journey.
The sheer variety of the population and the amount of people that slipped past him outside the car amazed him. It was only few years back, that he had also been a part of the same crowd, living in the same conditions. Now, he wanted to fix it, he wanted to fix the whole city. He looked out of his window as the traffic ground to a stand-still at a congested intersection at the people walking past his taxi.
He could not help but feel the need to delve into each of their lives, understand their objectives, learn from their achievements, listen to their fears, ask about their opinions, and enlist their help in fixing the city. The potential for a heroic journey in the thought excited him for a sweet, sweet moment before the eventuality of the failure weighed him down, making him want to sink down into the cushion, and hide in between the folds.
His mind threw countless arguments asking him not to have these thoughts on the first day of his vacation and depress himself. There was no way he was going to have the chance to save anything in the city, and those who could save it were busy slinging blame at each other instead of passing policies in the parliament. One argument led to a question, and that question led to another problem, which was the start of the unstoppable spiral towards pensive contemplation, that went very close to abject depression.
The taxi turned into a road free of clutter or traffic and sped past a popular industrial park, where people young and old were going to earn their daily wages, contributing fuel to the economic engine. Outside the park, a collection of cleaners were sweeping the roads, with a bright smile plastered on their faces. The change of environment, provided him a small thread to hang on, and climb out of the depression well. It reminded him of an old lesson, in a new way.
He realised, that his problem was wanting to fix all of the problems in the world. There were already people, who in their own way, were fixing the world. All he had to do was choose one problem, work hard on that problem, and try his hardest to fix it. If he could not fix it, there were always people behind him, who will give their best efforts to solve it. If he failed, there were always people ready to clean up his failure and tackle the problem from a different angle. If only that was an easy task...
PS- Wow that was intense :"D or... was it? I had this post messing my brain up for a looong time.
PPS - Of course, the usual disclaimer to ignore any errors in the prose.
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