Broken, maybe not

You realize you have had a bad day when you sit in the bus, find yourself a cozy seat, listen to the driver's mobile burst out into peppy Punjabi chartbusters within seconds of each other, but then you don't indulge in some much needed solitary laughter. Your mind is not present in that situation, it has travelled back in time to the precise moment when you made the terrible mistake of assuming you were right about the instructions. How can a person who qualified for an important examination like this even have the audacity to commit such a mistake? A mistake that will cost another year's hard work. Instead you shun all thoughts, pretend like nothing ever happened and continue concentrating on the next few days.

Dinner time you walk to the mess and eat a long, hard day's meal comprising of chicken curry and rice. A senior calls up to say he'll be over for a brief while. You wonder why? No one shows up without any agenda nowadays. But he does. He arrives with a few packets of noodles and coffee. You are struck by the mere honesty behind the thought. We live in a world where such people don't exist anymore. You smile to yourself and think, "I must have done something right after all."

So what if you have to postpone your plans? It doesn't signal the end, does it? The dreams are here to stay and the challenge shall be taken up with more intensity the second time. I am not going to leave room for excuses any more. Enough with the slack.