Another tiring day of work. Another series of strange new faces in the metro. Most of them buttoned up ready for the stress. The working bees, looking out of the windows for a life they aren’t living. For places they see, never visit. Girls with glosses, passing plastic smiles. Among them standing straight, I try hard not to fall back. Searching among the faces something intriguing. A story to tell.
Next station brings another hoard of passengers pushing their way into our space. But among them a face which was another one of them yet new. Young and shiny, buttoned up to the neck. Without that tired look, may be because he has just begun, like me. Or may be because he isn’t there just yet, like me. Never acknowledging my presence as opposed to everyone else. He wasn’t interested. Part of the herd yet different. Ushering strength and fearlessness. He wasn’t afraid of life, taking it head on.
And everyday I saw faces which were unknown, but familiar enough to energise. Distant, yet closer than anyone in some moments. People come and leave, that’s what I learnt in all those days. But they can always stay in, to make us learn. If they manage to linger for long, the learning is profound.
Returning home from work, tired I didn’t knew how will I ever get accustomed to this life. To so many strangers, I spent so much time with. Being tired and being unable to say that to anyone. Going home in solitude, with hundreds of empty fallen faces. And then out of the blue you see a familiar one who is gone strange. He lost his energy, when I spotted him again few weeks later in my bus. It was a coincidence which displayed the inevitable changes in life. Same face yet so different ways. Same place suffering different in different days.
That’s why when finally I had the chance to go back to college after the internship, I felt free. I knew the importance of freedom and time and how can we invest it to smile and life.
This time when I saw the familiar stranger, he almost felt like a follower who is around me, like me and yet a no one. All these series of consequences we ended up in. When I saw him almost everywhere I went. Metro, bus, college hallway, library, placement drives, etc., everywhere he turned up, becoming a more and more familiar unknown.
Never understood if I was following him or somehow I saw him around me mirroring my condition and insecurities, problems and priorities. A stranger who was so familiar somehow. Never tried to know about him. And he probably never noticed the situation.
With my life back on track and less tiresome, things grew lighter and sweet, to the days of socialising. Among the many follow requests, there was his. Don’t know if he sent it after noticing me or was he just like every other guy on the scene. But it was good to finally acknowledge him. It was good to claim that he was my follower and not the other way round. He might know a lot about me now, after following me, but I knew his insecurities and priorities well before he began.
Verse of Hearts 