I am me

It’s been over 2 years now. The same office. The same route to work everyday. The same people. The same faces. The same meaningless conversations. The same canteen. The very same dreaded canteen food. The same old work under the guise of new.
She never really liked what she was doing. So, she bore whatever work fell into her plate and did it with the required amount of involvement and a pinch more than that of indifference. She had long since come to understand that it was just means to an end. She did not look forward to feeling elated or like shouting “Eureka!! “ every time she made some amazing breakthrough. She was good at it, didn’t mean she had to like it. And it paid more than she could earn elsewhere, if she even knew what work she could do elsewhere. Seemed like years of training and repeated-constant exposure to her environs had turned her into what she sometimes despised in others – a modern day slave who harbored illusions of being different, being something more than all the other sheep, who was pure brain and had great potential just waiting to be recognized. And of course, one given 8*8 sq feet area, walling the slave in as much as they believed they used it to wall out the others.
That is the problem with knowing so much theory, being able to think out something, rationalize it, think of your situation as if you were seeing yourself through the third person’s eyes. You just lose track of what you want to do, what you are, what you can be, what you truly like and what defines you. You become another wallflower. And she was at the brink of falling over that line.
She looked at each place and identified it with the people that made it as it is. It gave her more pleasure than most other things to be surrounded by people who were waiting to be read and understood without them knowing it.
There were people she used to like to work with, people she liked talking with, people she would meet up over weekends for a cup of coffee and fun. But it all seemed so long ago. Sometimes, she felt like the survivor of some war, one who could only search for people who were part of her surroundings once but are no more. She looked around and felt like strangers had occupied the place that belonged to her friends. Like the table they always sat at in the canteen, many a time, was occupied by people she had never seen before. And she always felt that twinge of regret of have not gone away herself.
Moving to a new place seems to be less taxing on emotions than to live on in the same place with space and memories to fill in the gaps.
She moved forward suddenly as the bus stopped with a jerk. She had reached her slave factory.
As she got off the bus, she smiled wistfully at the thoughts that had filled her head through the journey and she shook her head. Another day, another beginning. There’s always hope, you just need to want something badly enough.
She saw a friend waving to her and moved towards her with a big smile and said hi. And she heard in return.
“Hi Stuti”.
That is me. Remember it. I am not Employee Number 213456. I am Stuti. I am my own person. I have hopes, desires, wishes and a life to live all by my own rules. Remember that and today too will pass by without you wondering why you feel like a part of you dies everyday just by being here.

The Silver Lining

It was a day like any other. The habit of having coffee at 11 now ingrained deeply into her, she set off with some of the other wilful slaves of routine. There were the usual jokes, the camaraderie, the rounds of laughter, discussions that were meaningless but being spoken of as if they would shake the earth's very foundations. She almost smiled at the futility of it all.

Sometimes, she wondered at herself. She was very capable of being in the midst of a throng and feeling very alone. It wasn't visible to the others, she would be saying the right things and responding at the required pauses but she felt like she was looking at the life of another, through another's eyes while being aware that there were no two people, it was just her.

She would be talking and simultaneously processing how the people around her would perceive the sentence, who would respond and in which way. And more often than not, her brain would foretell what would be said next and for that it would have prepared a response too.

These were two clearly seperate processes, both intimately aware of the other. The talking-process sometimes wondered what this is, if it is normal to have the voice in your head pondering about the clouds in the sky when you are talking of that model walking down the ramp on tv.
She was walking towards the coffee dispensing machine in the cafeteria quite lost in her own thoughts when she saw him. The first thought that ran through her mind was "Now, that's what good looking is". She was gawking at him and felt absolutely no need to feel ashamed about it or avert her eyes in case any one was watching her.
Just looking at him refreshed her, it was the weirdest of emotions, that voice inside her was telling her , trying to reason out what it was that she was doing, but the very same voice also grudgingly agreed that she was right. There he was minding his own business, unaware of her, just waiting for his cup of coffee and she felt like she had reached some special point, that something had changed all in that one second.
He turned around and left , oblivious to her and she moved along with her crowd and got her own cup but she didn't dare look for him.She didn't scan the cafeteria for that cute guy dressed all decently to look like he was one of that crowd, but he wasn't . She just knew.
Nobody realised that she wasn't in the conversation, but she really didn't care, the turmoil she was in mentally right now astounded her.
She had seen so many guys before, probably better looking than him, she had been in love too but this emotion that she was feeling based on one look was new to her. It made her feel wondrous, almost giddy with that feeling filling her up.
She leaned back on her chair and savored the moment. It was her ray of hope, it was that silver lining, she was still alive. She had feelings within her, they just needed that catalyst to bring it out.
She stood up with a smile and turned around to walk towards the door. He got up at the very same moment and as he did, he looked up at her. At that moment, not for the last 15 mins when she was agonising, questioning, understanding, accepting and finally enjoying that feeling that was coursing through her, he chose this minute to see her.
A thought popped into her head, what would he think if he knew I was smiling because of him.
He was still looking at her, time seemed to slow down to see exactly what effect this guy was having on Stuti.
She was surprised at the calm she felt, if she ever noticed some guy 'checking her out', she would immediately escape from the situation, either with a scowl on the face or swearing under her breath. Not now, now, she wanted him to see her, she wanted to know if she would affect him the same way.
As she passed by him, she knew that she wouldn't even have to look back.
He had felt it too.