I am OK

I am ok here… just OK. I know it sounds very clichéd if I say that I miss namma ooru, I miss home. But it is true. I miss the aroma of coffee that tingles the tip of my nose, as I walk down the streets under the shade of grandpa gulmohar. I miss hearing onde ondu sari blaring from the nearest autorickshaw, whose driver is meandering his way in blatant disregard of traffic rules, if any. I miss the imposing structure of the Vidhan Soudha and the apparent disregard with which my eyes glazed past those long corridors. I miss the delicious idlis and mouth watering dosas served at any darshini located at almost every nook and corner of the city. I miss the excitement in the air… I miss the belongingness and the warmth that the city exudes… I miss the cold, the glow of the early morning sun streaming down through the fog, the loud, yet distant and soothing chants of the suprabhatam… basically, I miss namma ooru for all the reasons that I never really loved it. And I don’t find myself comfortable in the place that I am in… for the same reasons… the reasons that I never attributed to loving living in a city. Anyway… after that long list of love for home… which will never diminish, about work here… I feel a little stagnant. It has become routine, doing the same thing every day, almost like a clockwork mouse- another P-t-C, another live, another story idea mooted, thrashed and tried hard to tell it in all of 100 words… the disillusionment and to some extent- helplessness that only the fourth estate can feel and live through… and still try to keep the light of hope alive and hunt for an impact story that will also be forgotten sooner than later; try to keep the byline alive in the ever so short public memory. I won’t say that the challenge has died down… of course not! It’s a challenge to smile on camera everyday, to make myself believe that this might be the story that will make a difference, to come up with a new story everyday… sometimes make the story out of something… or even nothing And come to think of it… life is a challenge everyday… we believe that we are important… and make ourselves believe that our life will make a difference to so many… when deep down we know that we will be forgotten almost as soon as we make ourselves comfortable 6 feet under. It’s a challenge to live through what we call life… with a quest to know what lies beyond the cakes, the parties, the diamonds, the mundane clockwork life punctuated with another routine of idyllic holidays on beaches or mountains or deserts or plains or forests… another entanglement that adds to the mess inside of our already clouded heads. It’s a challenge to strive to be different in a world where actually no one is different from anyone else… and for every different move you make there must be a hundred people somewhere else in this wild wide world doing the same… or at least someone has been there done that before… or even better, the thought already existed at another level… nothing is as novel as we strive to make it… its always been there. It’s a challenge to be what you are without feeling a pang of fear, of guilt, of pride. It is a challenge to let things be the way that they are without wanting to do anything about them… and also a challenge to do anything about them… a challenge to do… a challenge to not do… a challenge of duality that this life brings with it… a challenge to lift the veil of two and merge…