on the fast track, without too much of a choice

Its unbelievable how growing age with it brings enormous pressure.
Its unbelievable how most of it is because of plain competition.
Its unbelievable how all of us seem to want the same thing when there exist enough things in the world to satiate almost every soul (even after carefully considering the exploding population).
And what tops this list of The Unbelievables is how each of us wants exactly what the other wants and show complete disregard to their own needs, which infact lie completely elsewhere, more often than not! And yet without this the world wouldnt have been the way it is! As Darwin had postulated, when many try to achieve the same thing only the ones fittest to acquire it shall acquire it! All the great inventions, the booming businesses would have this very peculiar characteristic of man to thank for. And most of us are way too hardened and callous to this fight for survival to crib.

The reason i ever let my brain go down to such level of grave pondering is cause i find myself at that dreadful age when every step u take matters. (its a pity, there can be no more spending of unragarded for time in the toilet trying to figure out the nuances of life (many have pointed out that there certainly are better places to put such grave pondering in but i feel at my best in there) or sitting at the beach wondering how long wud i have to swim to reach the other end...) This November, if everything goes as planned, i would have to give an examination called the CAT! If ever there were innumerous people fighting for a handful of seats it is here. And for those who have gone from strength to strength (mostly courtesy the lady luck in this case) in their lives, the CAT is a treacherous hurdle. Treacherous because it has the ferocious knack of completely swallowing away ones joy of successes. Cause simple statistic points out that the odds of not cracking CAT are humongously more than cracking it! And yet i have set out on the quest to somehow manage to crack it! Annoying....!! Its funny why anyone would put oneself against such odds, and well the answer lies in the very characteristic of man i pointed out! Its unbelievable, as I have already mentioned too many times!

Oh! but the reason i mentioned CAT was that, because of this CAT's preparatory class I had to unwillingly put myself into a fast train heading towards Dadar! If I were to point out that this was a Sunday and it was half past 12 in the afternoon and I was to get in from Andheri, many would say that the journey would not be much of a hassle. That’s exactly the kind of mindset I had whilst reaching the station. However, it turned out that I had not considered the prospect of there being a Blockage of trains! Well so suddenly the Sunday became much more like a Monday and the afternoon much more like a morning, but the heat of the afternoon remained so! I blessed those days I had spent during early college days when I had mastered the act of getting into a rather FULL train (there generally seems to be no place for one person to fit in, but somehow, at least 20 manage to squeeze in!). And mastering the act of getting in means u need to be in the first 5 of those 20 people. So I managed to get in unscathed! And mind you that is a serious achievement. Since you are talking about competing (well even here there is competition..aghhh!) with people who consider getting in as a matter of life and death and would not mind landing their fists, elbows, heads or legs, all of which are sweaty and smelly, into either your stomach, mouth, eyes, and other places which aren’t in the realm of ‘worth being mentionable’ places! But sufficient to say that these actions can easily deter one from their main action of getting in and make them sit down at that very place in anguish!

Well, getting in is just half the battle won, cause then one has to very strategically find a place small enough for ones toes to fit in and close enough to something that can be held for support. In doing so one has to realize that anyone else’s shoulder, hand, shirt, ear or hair do not qualify as things one holds for support unless that anyone is someone u know or your loved one, in the latter case there are good chances of one wanting to hold many other things of the body for support or otherwise but they are best left to the reader’s imagination. It’s sufficient to say here that many couples do relish this congestion (with all due respect to their bond of love). Well sadly for me I was travelling alone so there wasn’t much for me to relish, though I would hate the notion of getting physical in front of 100 other people many of whom would ogle at such a site. Even more sadly around me were many people who had not read the above guidelines of finding support and mistook me as an object of support. One felt my face was a fairly good resting place for his hand and another thought I would be easier if he’d just put his hand on my shoulder then bother about taking it up till the handle. The other shoulder was devoted to this young guy who seemed to be enjoying talking to his girl on the phone at my loss! Suddenly, a someone in front of me felt the need to scratch his behind and if u know how close things are in a Mumbai train u’d what also he managed to scratch in the process. I am not saying that I did not do anything to avoid this but when u have two hands up on the handle u can’t really do much. The feeling of being used like this and literally manhandled was shitty (for the lack of a better word).

But there was more in store. That’s life in short for you. Exactly when you think that all that could go wrong has gone wrong and there is scope only for good things to happen, life surprises u with another setback. So, at this juncture, when I was certain the journey to dadar had seen almost all setbacks one last arose in for of a small kid. The woman behind me happened to be too tired of holding her kid and decided to put him down. I am at a loss to understand how that poor soul managed to fit on the ground or how he managed to remain unsuffocated! But all these thoughts were drawn away when the poor lad decided to hold onto my shorts for support. No grudges against him, but he probably in the fear of getting lost in all those legs around him, managed to really pull hard at them! Its another mystery that those loyal shorts managed to hang onto me and may they be blessed for that! Its strange how life keeps on pushing you on this fast track, and u keep on following those orders.

We keep saying we have no choice, but the truth remains that we choose not to have a choice! It comes across as a serious thought but do we really have the time to bother about it? Isn’t tomorrow’s assignment more important? We all wish we could spend more time on the beach (or the toilet, as it suits each) pondering but in the end we chose to remain apparently busy. We keep running away from that choice on the pretext, that we're on this fast track...