She wore the only pair of sandals she owned and locked her room. Before she left, she checked her purse. 50 rupees. Of which, she needed 30 for the day's travel. So she'd be left with 20 rupees...
She stepped out of the dingy building she lived in. It was a really cloudy day. How she hated this kind of climate. The hope of rain hanging somewhere in between all the clouds. If it rained, it would be happiness, it would be a pleasure, it would be a relief from a hot dry day. But this was too much to bear. The anxiety. The uncertainty. This wait for a hope. To know if it was actually hope or just a mirage.
The bus was less crowded today. It was a relief. A bit unsettling too. Relief because she always felt as though she was drowning in the crowd. Alone. Lost. Unsettling because she had built her comfort zone within that crowd, she had become comfortably numb in that lost, crowded life. And now, she felt that she had no where to hide.
She reached her stop after 45 minutes. She got down the bus and looked around the unfamiliar place. She held her certificate holder closer. Tighter. She had to do this, she needed this.
The building was huge. The well dressed sophisticated people running around the building made her feel a little more anxious. She felt out of place. She felt strange. She looked around for a familiar, at least friendly face as she sat on the couch waiting for the call. She looked around again and once again she realised that this is not what she wanted. She could not picture herself in here. She always thought of herself as someone who dared to dream and someone who would chase their dream. And today, sitting there, she realised that she was not like that. She was also a normal creature with desperate survival needs.
Dreams were only dreams. they will always be only that. Dreams can't buy food and dreams cant give you a life. In the path of pursuing her dreams, she had only lost. She lost money, friends, family, and most importantly, her ability to trust in herself. That was why this job was important. It was her only hope. To find herself again. To be able to dream again. To be able to trust in herself again.
Fifteen minutes after being inside the panel room, her fingers had become numb. She was very tensed. And the air conditioning did not help. They shot questions at her. Some, she could understand. Some were way beyond her comprehension. Half an hour later, they thanked her and told her that they'd get back to her in two days. She also thanked them back and left the room.
She got to the bus which was a little crowded at this time. Two days. The long long wait. Again. She looked at the brown paper cover that was staring at her from inside her bag. She had bought it two days ago. And she has been carrying it around. She had almost forgotten about it. But now, it stared right at her. And she did not know what to do.
She thought about the interview. She thought about the man she always saw while she was going back.She also thought about the drunk man she saw who always beat his wife and children. She thought about the lovers she kept seeing everywhere. She thought about the garden in front of the house she saw. She thought of home. Of her mom's familiar and soothing smell. Of her dad and his smile. She thought of the dosa her mom made. She thought of the numerous endless fights she had had with her brother. And as she thought of all this, she did not know what she felt within her. The vague feeling of something tightening inside her. The weight of some unknown feeling. The sense of being a worthless burden. A tear dropped from her eye. She smiled to herself. Being able to feel this pain was the only thing that made her alive, that made her feel like she is human.
She got inside her room and put her bag in a corner. She freshened up and had some bread that was left over. She took the brown cover from her bag and put it on the table, near the mat. She looked at the cover and smiled again.
Two days.
She set her mobile alarm clock to beep at 8 'O' clock. And she got on to her mat and tried to sleep.
