Precious Pearls

Hi. How do I look today? Disturbed or fresh? Oh, I know you are too engrossed with yourself and hardly have any time to look at me. I would request you to spend a few moments.                                     Thus, I asked you how do I look? Well there's much more to me than my appearance. My reactions, tensions, relationships, prejudices, not it's born overnight. It's to do with my childhood, family setup, friends, parents, school... I have my own fears, moments of happiness and yes, confusion.                                     I think I can look at my life myself and sort out things clearly. Today, I can trace ...

During a friendly banter with a friend recently, we burst into a laugh sharing a childhood memory. We used to occasionally take state transport buses for school and travel around. A few buses wouldn’t have conductors as tickets were pre-issued. We were typically reluctant to take a bus without a conductor fearing; what if the driver doesn’t halt the bus at the point we needed to get down. My fear for the conductor-less bus refused to wane for a couple of years into my schooling. For us, a conductor was the only ‘wise man’ who would step in in case there were heated arguments among people, a common occurrence. We, as a society too, look upon someone to take guard for us, don’t we? Meanwhile, more and more buses became conductor-less as the means of transport evolved and my fear evaporated by itself… For more than two decades, this bus without a conductor was out of my mind.  Now call it a far-fetched simile but a few Facebook posts reminded me of that bus again; only laugh...