Friday, June 4, 2010

All in a day’s work



Today began like every other day- going through all the items of my daily routine. I hardly had an idea that a day that began in such a mundane way could go on and teach me such a profound lesson in life.

Once I stepped out of my house, my struggle to get to my college began. But I was not the only one in this struggle. The bus for which I was waiting came in over-filled. And yet, the ones with a superior desire to reach their work on time managed to scramble themselves on board. I gave up and waited for the next bus. I have to change three buses to get to my final destination (my college). 

Usually, I do not look around on my way to college, but today was a special case. I noticed large groups of migrant labourers waiting anxiously for a contractor to arrive and delegate the day’s work. The only way they know to earn bread.

But, nothing so insightful crossed my mind while I tried to make my way to the next bus that would take me a step closer to the final checkpoint.

Next stop: the Bus Stand in Panjim.

And once again, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed in the 700 consecutive days that I’d been there. I noticed PEOPLE who, just like me, were uninterested in the surrounding. Moving like robots with a mission in mind. With these images of the hustle and bustle of the planet’s routine, I entered my college.

No sooner did I enter the gate I knew that the unusual observation that I’d managed this morning will end here. Today’s lecture was on “International Terrorism post-1945”. But as the lecturer started to throw up stats after stats, as to how many people were killed in how many attacks in which year, I lost all the attention I had brought along with me. I didn’t manage to note down any of the numbers; but, I could not stop thinking about terrorism, terrorists and the reasons behind the fanaticism that has caused SO MUCH chaos time and again in human history. 

On my commute back home, I pondered over the images of terrorists, the cause and effect relationship between the various significant events of recent history. Once I reached home, however, these vague thoughts slowly left my mind. (The same way people left the cinema hall while Ritieieieish Deshmukh’s Aladin was being screened)

As the day went down, I started to get ready for an eagerly awaited music concert. Indian Ocean, my all time favourite Indian Folk Rock band were playing at a college fest. I, along with a few friends reached the venue an hour before the crowd started to trickle in. The music was delightful. The atmosphere was amazing. Some soulful lyrics and some groovy folk songs are the best way to end your day. Well, actually I THOUGHT it was the end.

But, as I said earlier, today was going to be different.

After the concert my friend was going to drop me home. While I sat on the back seat, all the pieces of information and absurd observations I had encompassed throughout the day, started to fall into place.

I had an epiphany.

All these years, I’ve been taught in school, at home, among friends, through books, movies etc. That,

 “All humans are equal.”

But today, I had witnessed the otherwise.

My day had commenced alongside a group of people whose only objective was to get through the day alive and earn enough to buy food and drinks that would keep them alive till the next day. And people who were living a life of robotic proportions.



In college, I learnt about terrorists. But, who are terrorists? Why are they motivated to kill innocent people? They are innocent people too. But their struggle is a struggle for identity. And when their identity is threatened, they act in the most appropriate way that they can think of.



And then, I think of the time I spent at the Indian Ocean concert with my friends- listening to the enlightening verses from Mahabharata and a range of folk songs. The time spent with them grooving to the divine music and losing the sense of self.



In retrospective, that was a need. We needed some soul searching.. Some peace of mind.. Some enlightenment..

The question I ask myself now is that,

How can that laborer who has nothing but today to worry about, the terrorist who is willing to die to preserve his identity, and my friends and me who were in search of something our daily life fails to give us...be equal?

As my friend steered through the darkness to drop me home, I had learnt something that had changed me...

We are not equal. We have different needs, different desires. And to fulfil those needs and pursue those desires, we struggle. But our struggles are different. And that’s what makes us different. Whether it is good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate... I don’t know...maybe I will have to wait for another such day to find out.






NOTE: this post was originally written as a narration for a 6 minute documentary which I made for my project. So, if you like it, you'll like the documentary more. If you don't like it...well, read it again.

4 comments:

Swati Bytes said...

enjoyed reading it all over again..visuals from the documentary never left me.. why dont you post the documentary?

Omkar Rege said...

will do that soon.

Unknown said...

Excellent. Would love to see the documentary.
One way to look at this issue is - while the nature of each person's struggle is different, the essential questions that lead to these struggles are the same. Questions like - Who am I? Why am I here? Where have I come from? Where will I go after this?
Maybe human beings are equal because these questions are universal.
One of my friends said the other day - we are all born perfect. By the time we are 25, we are left with what we deserve!
So maybe we are all equal and unequal both!

Omkar Rege said...

interesting. the debate over existence and the purpose of life gets more and more complicated as we grow. sometimes, i feel i don't know which side i'm on.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.