YEAR 2021 : SCENARIO 1
Am sitting in my office, in front of my virtual screen. There are images displayed on my screen, images from my past…wh
ich seem more like history now. My Picassa web album has now become almost 1 Tb in size, thanks to Google which has now replaced Microsoft at the top, and technology that now allows us unlimited storage in the cyber space. So much has changed in the last 13 years. We no longer have LCDs or TFTs or even big bulky CPU’s. Everything is virtual nowadays. The screen i see infront of me, is nothing but a projection from a miniscule projector, hidden somehwere on my desk.The keyboard is also a mere projection. Only the CPU ( called the RPU these days [RPU for Remote Processing Unit] ) remains as the only solid piece of hardware. And as with technology, we too have grown. I am 35 years old now, living a life which we all shunned from the mere onset, when we were still 21. But then, “20-22 saal ki umar me to sabko lagta hai ki, duniya unke ishaaron pe naachegi”.
Last month i visited T. He’s living a happy life, with his ‘begum’ in mumbai….at least i think he’s happy. He was the darling of all girls, in his school and college days. But miyaan was perennially confused about his girls, or for that matter about everything else too, about his career, life…everything. Now he’s living happily in mumbai, working for some big company which makes the french fries and burgers, that i eat everyday in breaksfast. He’s got a beautiful wife, who greets you with a smile and a glass of water , each time you visit him, while i can only stare at her beautiful reflection in the shining marble floor below her feet. And ya, he’s got two children too…in the very first year of marriage. Thankfully, they know who i am, if not as the uncle who brings them chocolates every day, then atleast as a friend to their father. T’s my closest friend till date, and we have been like this for the last 20 years.
Speaking of children, i now rememebr that even i have one of those. Its not a big surprise actually that he slips out of my open mind every now and then, for he can be hardly located at one particular place. More like Heisenberg uncertainity principle. In any case, he’s 5 years old (atleast thats what i remember) and has already broken the front row teeth of the last row guy of his school, tied the hair of the girl who made the mistake of sitting in front of her, in such a mess that she actually had to cut her hair, cracked open the LCD teaching board of his class in a way which even the garhical designs teacher had to admire…and is on the verge of being thrown out of the school. Its all his mother’s fault actually who blames it everyday on me however.
R called me up over the internet, today morning. He’s nicely settled in Texas ans still cribs about his job , and how he isn’t able to devote time to his family , which he doesn’t have really. He’s 35 too and still cursing girls like people curse the common cold. And then ofcourse, he talks as if i were the bill gates( People don’t remember him now, but i am a man of old habbits) of richness and he’s the struggling software engineer , when its actually the other way round. In any case, he’s has somehow miraculously survived as the third leg of our gang. At least we were a gang some 15 years back…what was it called…ATR??…RTA??…RAT??…oh yeah..ART !
And then, he asks innocently about my wife, which made me remember that today’s her birthday. Oh shit, its 7pm already and i haven’t even thought of a suitable gift. I better be dead than alive now. I still rememebr how last year, i had to spend the night at my friend P’s house. It was actually fun. P is my colleague at office who is in this age long mission to lose weight, which is virtually impossible unless he stops eating junk and not thinking about his weight too much. In any case i got some good food for a change. Ofcourse , i never told that to my honey.
Its not like my sweetheart is some devil from hell or something, but she definitely deserves an award for tolerating all my tantrums and mood swings for yet another year and not killing me instead. I still remember how i met her. I was still young and still in the misconception that i could get any girl i wanted. It was she who slapped me back to reality, and i just couldn’t let go of her after that. Of course, she doesn’t dominate me at all…we have an unsaid understanding between us, so that when she’s angry, she generally doesn’t utter a syllable and am left to wonder, like a bihari watching a tamil movie. Oh shit, the GIFT.
I have no idea what to gift her this year. I don’t even remember what i gifted her the last year or the year before. D must remember…its genrally she who does all these important decision making for me. D is my best friend cum childhood buddy. She is my first friend on earth, and we’ve been frndz ever since then, which is some 30 years back. She’ happily married now, works in some foreign bank ( i have a house loan from that bank too ), and is always ready to solve my problems ranging from common cold, to uncommon amnesia. Her husband sometimes eyes me with the eyes of a hungry vulture, but except that, everything’s just about normal. Oh shit, the GIFT.
I rush to the nearest Archies store, my car key in one hand and my cellphone in the other, almost avoid a collision with a pretty girl, and go straight to the corner where D tells me what i should get over the phone. What an obvious choice of gift. Its a big “I AM SORRY but I STILL LOVE YOU” card. Sometime i really am an idiot these days. As it later turns out , i had also ordered a beautiful diamond ring for her, which i forgot to pick up that day.
13 years have passed since i was only 22. I see those days only in my web album these days. I was wild, pathetic, full of energy those days. I wanted to take on the world, do whatever i wanted to do, maybe become some great painter, or a great writer, so that i no longer have to work my entire life. I still have that dream, but the hopes of turning those dreams to reality have vanished. I work in this big international company, which has its own set of responsibilties. I have a family, a wife whom i love the most, a child whom i don’t know what to do with, a mother who still doesn’t really trust me (20 years now and she still thinks i have done all the wrong things in the world for all the wrong reasons), a dad who still speaks as little as possible in a great effort to conserve energy i guess, and also a deedee who still fights with me for all the wrong reasons, cries a lot and then accepts me finally with all the warmth of love. This is now. 13 years back, it was all different.
With a great sigh, i finally open the door to my house. Its 10 pm in my watch, and there’s my wife standing in the ominous family hall, expecting me to comprehend the unsaid understanding between us. I realize now that its all over and go straight and plant a kiss on her cheek, “I AM SORRY dear but I STILL LOVE YOU” !
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THE MIRROR 99 