What’s Out There?

It’s sometimes so difficult to begin with something and, at times; it gets even worse when you are responsible to put an end to it. You are not supposed to rant or crib, but you have the right to personalize it. When you start with something stupid and the outcome turns out to be ridiculous, you become speechless. The result is that you just want to put it away or crumple it or to make you feel better, burn it till its meaning of “thinghood”, as put by Aristotle, vanishes into thin air. Thus, no ashes to ashes and no dust to dust. It’s time to restart. Almost everyday, we all go through this. Last night, something really stupid happened. After work, my colleague and I left in an auto rickshaw. The auto guy fixed the fare higher than what it usually is. After a hard try at negotiating to a little lower fare than what he had asked for, we sat leaving the remaining arguments blown by the cold wind, as the auto man revved up his engine and took off.

After dropping off my colleague, (his house comes on the way to my place), I was sitting alone in the auto. After that, I felt really awkward for another 10 minutes. He did everything to express his anger to me. Was I the cause of, I can’t be confident on that because I really didn’t do anything that would infuriate him. I felt like a harmless insect that was bearing the brunt of his attitude. I was confused and sh*t scared as well. It was late in the night, and I didn’t want to fight with him and risk my life at the cost of it. (You know how Delhi commuters are in the night). Seriously, something is really crazy about these people who lock their sanity into insane acts like road rage. One minute they are really sweet and nice to you, and then, the next minute, comes the gun and bang-bang. It’s like someone gifted you a box of chocolates, and out comes Jack from the Box scaring the sh*t out of you. Except that, this time you are not laughing at yourself for being so blatantly stupid. Instead, you are on the ground, bleeding away to death, and no one turns up to your rescue, or even take the initiative to dial the goddamn helpline. It’s here when you actually feel the realms of an existential thriller, (subconsciously recounting all the movies that you have seen so far). You are your own audience at this extreme point of reality, but for others it’s just another source of entertainment. Therefore, they all encircle around the fu*king incident and stare at the live ‘filmy’ scene. Later, in the end, there’ll be another candle light fu*king peace march done in ‘thy holy’ name.

Alright, I apologize for dragging you to this nightmarish imagination, and take you back to where I was, i.e. traveling in the auto and being the victim of rile behavior. Honestly, this is exactly what I was going through in that auto with the maniac. Luckily, I withheld my anger and didn’t do anything stupid.

So, I told the guy to stop at a point which was close to my place. (I didn’t want him to know where I lived.) I paid him 100 bucks and was waiting for the balance (the fare was fixed by me and my colleague at 90 with the auto guy.)

I waited for another few seconds, and then I asked him, “Bhaiya, balance?”…There was no reply, but I could see him folding his arms and could sense something very absurd forming within that moment. I was sitting behind all this nonsense and it was hard for me to decipher such a gesture. So I stepped out to confront this dim-witted as*hole and asked him again. He obstinately refused and persisted not to give me back the balance that I had been waiting for after a long time of such intolerance. I gave up and was so pissed off by him and told him to fu*k off. After that, he went away without giving the balance and I walked down to my place, all wound up. Suddenly, I felt inane about all this and tried to forget about it. So, I stabbed my anger into the chilly thin air that left no ‘ashes’ or ‘dust’ settling on my mind.