Sunset
He looked on….the Sun was hurrying away under the waves of the limitless ocean. It felt as if the Sun was running late for a rendezvous. Was it a date with his wife? “Oh, is Sun married at all?” Avinash frowned. “May be he is, his kids might be waiting eagerly for him to return” Avinash smiled at his own imaginations.
It was his favorite time of the day. When dimming rays of Sun, reflected on the oceanic waves, Avinash reflected on his life from the garden terrace of his beach facing bungalow.
It had been 20 years since he moved to the city of dreams. How ironic was it that Avinash had no dream! He was content in his own world, no expectations from life or people. He loved the sea, standing on the beach, burying his feet under the sand and feeling the sand slowly moving away from his feet. This was how life was for him, like a natural wave, and he was like sand, flowing where the waves took him, without any complaints. How he wished, it had remained the way it was! But at an age of 19, he could not even fathom what was in store for him.
A dreamless happy-go-lucky chap was about to be transformed into an ambitious “never-stop” addict of success.
But here he was, not thinking about his success or next promotion, but staring at the Sun. Suddenly he remembered that Arhan, his son, wanted to play a game of Othello with him but he had calls to attend. “hmm….I missed playing with Arhan, will do it tomorrow”, he made a mental note.
Day after day, Avinash looked at the Sun and made a mental note of something which he had missed during the day, even simple things like hugging Arhan for an extra minute, paying attention to Arna’s (his wife) continuous narration about her day, his 5000 steps walk, spending non-mobile time at the dining table and so on.
Never a day would pass when Avinash didn’t miss out one of the things.
Sun was almost at the entrance of his home. Waves were getting higher and Sun was ready to take a plunge. “What a monotonous life Sun has, wake up at the same time every day, take the same route to sky office, burn till evening and rush back home. No flexibility!! But how is it different from my life? I do the same, day after day. At-least Sun gets to be home with his family on time everyday! Sun probably doesn’t have any pending tasks at the end of the day” Avinash wondered with a feeling of melancholy.
Since few weeks, Avinash was miserably failing in fighting this pensive feeling. Any kind of success, big or small, was not motivating him enough to go on. His mind kept telling him that this was not the life he had wanted, but if not this, what else would he do?
Sun was home. Avinash let out a sigh, and turned back to enter his home. Another day had ended….
PS: An open end of the story is intentional. Lately, I have been meeting people who are fighting the same feeling as Avinash. Call it midlife crises or quest for survival, we are all trying to strike a balance in life. With this story, I just wanted to bring out the feelings that most of us keep hidden, because we can’t stop, what we had started. Answers and solutions are probably within or around us but I have no intentions to find those answers….atleast for now.
