Going through the road to work witnessing various sorts of characters is mundane, but novelty grows out of the mundane if we twist our perspective and try to look deep into any of those characters, be it a street vendor, a beggar, student, a labourer, a suited official, etc. The one thing that is common for the run they all are going through is to keep the kitchen fires alive, And what varies, is nothing but the price of bread from a vendor to a suited official, which both of them need to pay.
A while ago, in a dingy and foggy evening I was having a pizza sitting outside on the railing of a community market complex right in front of the gloriously lit outlet which was in total contrast to the dull evening. Deliberately I avoided sitting inside among the flashy, gadgety youth and arm clinging lovers and half baked families of 2-1/2 or 2-3/4, where there ½ or ¾ keep running around noisily because they are deprived of playgrounds in the metropolis and they are at full throttle in an open restaurant, and their mothers are too lazy to tame them not to peep into the clinging lovers platter. The artificiality is evident everywhere and it repulses right in a moment.
Anyways! I enjoyed the hot pizza under the cold sky looking everywhere around, the posters, the wine shop with swarming crowd, the ever filled parking lot and the arguments going on between helpful constables with rude vehicle owners.
Finally my gaze stopped at a nearby vendor serving omelletes and an active dog feeding on the tidbits thrown by his customers, on the opposite was a man sleeping draped in blanket lying under a tree with a dog leaning on his back as it was an exchange of heat in the cold evening. Then a group of cheerful workers from a nearby bank emerged for cigarettes and had all sorts of office gossip from depressing boss to sultry secretary to increments to sales targets to under-performance to Boss’s chelas.
What is to notice that within a hardly 100mtrs of diameter there’s a variety of life that exists and we hardly notice it.
Eating near the pavement showed what seems non-existent.
The day belongs to the run behind the daily bread from all the living species.
The mundane rules almost every strata from the poor to the rich, Exceptions are those creatively inclined people or social good-doers who challenge to make a change in their lives and be a motivation to others. Respect to the sportspersons, artists, writers, ORIGINAL journalists etc., who ask questions and try to find answers themselves, who don’t live life as burden but utilize their energy in positivity.
Daily bread is a truth can’t be denied but it’s not the only truth to survive for.
