Once, a few years back, I met an old acquaintance in a crowded railway platform. After a few minutes of discussion on the weather and such, I had asked him a question… “What is your teen daughter doing now?”
He replied … but only with a satisfying smile on his face, with a twirling of his fingers. The fingers shot close to a few inches of my face, moved a couple of times in front of my eyes and then went back to rest in his trouser pockets.
I went foggy ..with the vision of a couple of twirling fingers. The only thing that a couple of moving fingers brought to my mind is the local yellow pages directory. The emblem of one finger curled against the other. Other than that…well ,nothing even seemed distantly familiar.
A few moments went by till my left brain with its logical base handed over the reigns to my right. I tried to visualize a profession where two fingers moved …up and down , one and then the next. A few more seconds till the right hemisphere of my brain also took a beating and pushed my eyebrows stiff up.
Now it was now my turn to loose a smile. I opened my eyes wide and shook my nose with a little quizzical expression. “What does that mean? I mean , umm, your fingers? I mean what do they do” …err.. I asked “what does she really do? ”
It was now his turn to be a bit on the dismay. He opened his eyes now, bigger than mine, with the eyelashes stretching up half the way upto his hairline.
“You didnt get it ? “. He kind of pounced on me… repeating himself again a couple of times . “You didnt get IT !!!” And then , a few more seconds of breathtaking silence rolled on. Slowly there dawned a tiny smirk on his face, a look of disdain at the utter lack of knowledge that I have of the twirling world around. My absolute muteness brought out a kind of mutiny like defiance into his voice.
“She walks , man, she walks !!!”
“Ohh…hey I got that now. She walks.” She walked, probably from her home to college, or from college to home. She must have been walking on .. from one place to the other; pretty damn interesting the conversation was becoming, or the lack of it, for both of us.
She may have walked from her friends house to the pet store to the ….well I couldnt really put a comma or a semicolon where i should have.
“But where…I mean from where…into where…does she walk?” I blurted out putting aside all inadequacies that I have in thinking of a walking phenomenon.
” What do you mean from where? She walks from here to there and back to here. Up and down. In denims with high boots, in glowing robes with masquerading hats, in floral tops and breaded skirts. In everything man and in everywhere. ”
So now the scenery became quite clear to me. She walks, she walks the ramps , under the blatant flood lights or coloured myraids. As far away as I may be from this world of sheer magnitude, I was able to percieve the effort that this girl has started putting into one of the most sought after professions of the world of the young and beautiful.
A world of fame and fortune, of glitz and glamour, of mice and men. A ticket to paradise, as most young people of a generation pursued it with full gusto.
A few years down the line and i once again checked on that girl. SHe still walks, but not on ramps any more. She walks with her little son down the cobbled streets to the local kindergarten. And then to the grocers and finally home, in time to prepare food for her family. The pressures of the glitzy world and the high stressed profession had ultimately become too unbecoming, and had landed her into a refuge of a rehab camp, till she ultimately found her own place in this world of sun and shades. The world that had sucked her up in itself, had ultimately deserted her but luckily she had left that few ounces of will to find a part time job at the local pizza store. Now, with a more wizened look and an inner calmness that has erased the heady turmoil of her yester-years, she manages a serene life with a happier soul.
It was just a few days back that I met my old acquaintance again at the busy railway station. Huffing and puffing as we both were to catch our daily commute back home, I exchanged a few pleasantries till I asked him another question.” Hey man, what is your teenage son doing?”
Up came his right hand, again, with a sea of twirling fingers..right below my chin. I suddenly was thrown back into time, again at the same crossroads of intelligence, right at the very spot I had found myself years back. A challenge from the unknown… and my mind needs to be right on top this time. Would it be wise to pursue my utter lack of visionary knowledge anymore or should I keep my prehistoric apparition of the world around to myself, I asked.
Nothing else came to my mind except a few chimes of the station clock overhead. “The piano…u mean? ” I asked.
The smirk, came back, with more lines around the chin this time. And a small smile encapsulated it showing a little hollow where a white tooth was seen last time.
“Dont you understand..?.” he asked me.
Well its time to accept my defeat, I knew that I was perfectly off the bull’s eye this time, again. Pressing my lips tight together, I accepted defeat. “Well, ere, thats my guess” I blurted.
” He blogs man, he blogs !!!” and off he went to secure his place for the long ride home.
Blogging , the new Buzzword of the present techno savvy erudite world. Everyone speaks out on any topic. Everyone is an author, a scholar and an advisor. Let the world know that you have an opinion. To each his own. And no wonder, every day new blogs get created by the thousands all accross the world. An endless sea of blogs and bloggers now line the shores of the net.
I finally understood that a new generation has arrived.
(With no sarcasm intended)
