When I travel in a bus, or a metro train I often observe the people travelling besides and a lot of the houses and other buildings passing by outside.
I sometimes ask my imagination, what would it be like to ‘be him/her’ or to ‘be there in that house or office or a shop’.
There are so many stories waiting to be told or are going to remain untold in that moment that would last till the thought or that particular journey will.
This was definitely more interesting during my college days when almost 90% of the people did not used to be sitting or standing engrossed in their phones, but of course signs of this dark time were there back then. If not necessary I don’t take out my phone outside, there is a whole world happening out there, what could be more interesting, right?
So, the imagination ponders from person to person, that woman engrossed in a book, that man looking for an interesting conversation that he will eventually find, that girl looking at another girl and wondering maybe they would be friends, a boy looking at the car outside and deciding that he would buy it one day, the occasional elderly just glad to be still be part of this moving world and reminiscing and many many more, right down there deep into complexities.
Yes, the other part of it, the houses, big or small, the life that lives within, everything the people might or might not do differently, the difference in perspective that they will maintain in life. Will the struggles make life more memorable or will the comfort ruin the essence of it. Long train journey certainly puts a unique hue upon these thoughts especially during the night time, when in the midst of empty fields stands a single house and you can conjure up all forms of horror stories trying to imagine life.
Bits and parts of everything form a story that I try to write, if possible, every day. Who knows what bit of story I might be part of if there was another with a thought like mine sitting near the window of a bus or standing near the gate of a metro or local passenger train.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 