What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to
stand and stare.
These words written by
William Henry Davies a century ago is more relevant in today’s time. Life in
today’s time is fast and hectic. People lead a robotic life, wake up go to work,
come back home, do the work brought home and go to sleep. And the cycle starts
again the next day.
Especially in a city
like Mumbai there is no time to sit back and relax you have to be on the move. To
stop is to lose your edge and your ability to survive in Mumbai.
Every day while
travelling by train and some times by bus people can be classified into three
groups. The first consists of people of the religious temperament chanting away
on religious hymns and distributing Prasad to their fellow travellers. This is
by far the larger group. If they obtain peace by doing then it is their choice,
I say if because many fellow passengers join them so they can have a seat to
sit at least part of the journey to work. The second group is that of the music
lovers. They always have a pair of ear plugs stuffed in their ears and are
always bobbing their heads to the music they are listening, obtaining their
peace of mind from the music they are listening, oblivious to the world passing
them by.
The third group
doesn’t really qualify as a group as they are so few and are always alone and
almost never travel together. They are normally taken to be part of the fore
mentioned groups. They are normally seen near the windows or near the entrance
of the train bogie. Some people call them dreamers, as they are lost in their
own world. I asked one what is it that he does every day staring out and his
answer was that “I am relaxing by looking at the beauty of the city passing us
by.”
That was definitely
not the answer I was expecting. Had he said that he was thinking or
contemplating about life, I could understand that but “looking at beauty
passing us by” made me question his thought process, as we mumbaikars consider
our city as one if the dirtiest place to live in. His answer was something that
rattled around in my head as if I was trying to grasp an oil-coated marble
(playing marble). Every time I felt I understood what he meant, I some how lost
my chain of thought.
It was later a few
days later while I was traveling across the Marine drive, watching the rolling
waves of the sea and listening to John Lennon’s song “You may think I am a
dreamer” (though the song was about completely different topic) that I finally understood his point of view. We live our life in a
mechanical manner. Things that we see around us give us no relaxation of mind,
we look for this relaxation by listening to music or singing hymns (and perhaps
disturbing other people). But in reality all these are unnecessary, all we have
to do is look at the sights around us and listen to the sounds around us. The
chirping of birds is not more melodious outside Mumbai nor is the sunrise or
the sun set more beautiful in Goa. Just that we find the chirping of the birds
more melodious on vacations or sights and are more beautiful because we want
them to be.
It was while listening to Lennon’s song I realized that if being a
dreamer makes me happy, more productive and on the whole a better human being,
then I don’t mind being called a dreamer.
“You, you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one, I hope someday you will join us
And
the world will live as one.”
