“Most people lose the ability to see silver linings even though they are always there above us almost every day.”
It seems four days ago i was on a bus. A bus which transported me 13 hours later to NOWHERE. I picked up my baggage and papers and started walking and kept walking because the only thing remotely visible was a skeleton,a skeleton of a building. I still walked on, reached a room- so this room basically a storage space for four girls exhausted,excited,enraged,estranged and most importantly unknown to each other. The lizard on the wall clicked its tongue, the cricket behind the curtain cricked away and all we said was Hi!
Gracious to the T we offered each other our help and then proceeded to those spaces that would be our platform for role play, debate and in a way to learn some and lose some. Is it really that easy to ignore the dust, the heat, the mirage and the mosquitoes? Turns out it is. We forgot our surroundings and started concentrating on what we had to do and that was probably, proving a point.
So three days, two communiques and one memory later i looked up into that dust and saw something ... maybe a mirage, maybe reality, maybe a cloud waiting to burst, maybe a thought gathering dust attracting subtle matter to it,maybe a dark shining outline. A Silver Lining.
They say when we talk of world damnation and Indian hypocrisy it makes us wise, knowledgeable and confident why then did we succumb to tears in the heat, in the cold air of the bus, in the arms of waiting family and friends. These issues may depress one but at the same time they open before us an array of choices...make your friends, find your allies,write your drafts, negotiate with the unmoving opponent and then smile, speak and do exactly what you originally planned to do.
Suddenly those that we met over these three days became as important as those we already knew. A law student who looks like a celebrity(scary alike), a girl who shares half your name and another who shares half your food without knowing anything about you. The seniors you only dared to smile at now walk up to you and hug you in those corridors where you sheepishly say Hello! Those Chairpersons we made WhatsApp groups about (according to them, not really ) stand outside a bus and ask you why you're silent at 11:45 at night and ask the same at 4:30 am,you offer another brownies and then spend an hour getting all nostalgic on the bus! The tide turns and the rain falls, the earth gets that rejuvenating smell and we?
We move a little closer, one step at a time to that shining outline. The trophy shines bright, the college seems welcoming, your friends jump up to greet you, the city reeks of civilization then why is it that all you actually want is to hear that sound of those machines beside the skeleton, the cricket chirping, the people arguing,annoying and trying to talk to you. In the search for new horizons or in this case the old ones we lose track of the clouds that stood right above us, the ones with a silver lining. the moments where what and who we were didn't matter all that mattered is if you were ready to dance with an abandon and sing with your soul, converse with your spirit and live with all your might. Where those strangers became friends and lifted the veil of pretense of our faces so that we could see that glitter above us, that glimmer in the distance. I reached home and that's Where I wanted to be.
We were so shrouded with disappointment that we took off in the search for a silver lining not realizing that it was right above us, those strangers became each others secret keepers,the chivalry was kept alive, the medicine came a little late , the journey took a little long ,realization still is hitting, we still are walking- a different direction but we wont stop. we keep looking for a silver lining.
Lucknow, Friends,a New Identity,an anonymity,a simplicity, a little audacity and some help...I found my Silver Lining! Turns out it was there all along! It was Us,the city,the conference,the people and That dark looming cloud that showed me the glimmer!
It seems four days ago i was on a bus. A bus which transported me 13 hours later to NOWHERE. I picked up my baggage and papers and started walking and kept walking because the only thing remotely visible was a skeleton,a skeleton of a building. I still walked on, reached a room- so this room basically a storage space for four girls exhausted,excited,enraged,estranged and most importantly unknown to each other. The lizard on the wall clicked its tongue, the cricket behind the curtain cricked away and all we said was Hi!
Gracious to the T we offered each other our help and then proceeded to those spaces that would be our platform for role play, debate and in a way to learn some and lose some. Is it really that easy to ignore the dust, the heat, the mirage and the mosquitoes? Turns out it is. We forgot our surroundings and started concentrating on what we had to do and that was probably, proving a point.
So three days, two communiques and one memory later i looked up into that dust and saw something ... maybe a mirage, maybe reality, maybe a cloud waiting to burst, maybe a thought gathering dust attracting subtle matter to it,maybe a dark shining outline. A Silver Lining.
They say when we talk of world damnation and Indian hypocrisy it makes us wise, knowledgeable and confident why then did we succumb to tears in the heat, in the cold air of the bus, in the arms of waiting family and friends. These issues may depress one but at the same time they open before us an array of choices...make your friends, find your allies,write your drafts, negotiate with the unmoving opponent and then smile, speak and do exactly what you originally planned to do.
Suddenly those that we met over these three days became as important as those we already knew. A law student who looks like a celebrity(scary alike), a girl who shares half your name and another who shares half your food without knowing anything about you. The seniors you only dared to smile at now walk up to you and hug you in those corridors where you sheepishly say Hello! Those Chairpersons we made WhatsApp groups about (according to them, not really ) stand outside a bus and ask you why you're silent at 11:45 at night and ask the same at 4:30 am,you offer another brownies and then spend an hour getting all nostalgic on the bus! The tide turns and the rain falls, the earth gets that rejuvenating smell and we?
We move a little closer, one step at a time to that shining outline. The trophy shines bright, the college seems welcoming, your friends jump up to greet you, the city reeks of civilization then why is it that all you actually want is to hear that sound of those machines beside the skeleton, the cricket chirping, the people arguing,annoying and trying to talk to you. In the search for new horizons or in this case the old ones we lose track of the clouds that stood right above us, the ones with a silver lining. the moments where what and who we were didn't matter all that mattered is if you were ready to dance with an abandon and sing with your soul, converse with your spirit and live with all your might. Where those strangers became friends and lifted the veil of pretense of our faces so that we could see that glitter above us, that glimmer in the distance. I reached home and that's Where I wanted to be.
We were so shrouded with disappointment that we took off in the search for a silver lining not realizing that it was right above us, those strangers became each others secret keepers,the chivalry was kept alive, the medicine came a little late , the journey took a little long ,realization still is hitting, we still are walking- a different direction but we wont stop. we keep looking for a silver lining.
Lucknow, Friends,a New Identity,an anonymity,a simplicity, a little audacity and some help...I found my Silver Lining! Turns out it was there all along! It was Us,the city,the conference,the people and That dark looming cloud that showed me the glimmer!
I see a faint hint directed towards me. :)
ReplyDeleteKeep it up! You have a flair for writing! Good luck!