Old Sepia Pages

9. automatons

29th july, monday, 2019

dear diary,

There's another development. I have been told to handle my finances. I'm 18 now, and my bank account belongs to me. So I've started keeping a track of the money I'm spending every day. I will get a monthly interest from the capital, and I'm going to treat that as my pocket-money.

I've started taking a bus to the metro station. It's too painful to hand over 40 rupees to the rikshaw-wala everyday. The good thing about the bus is that I can escape without buying a ticket (because it is so crowded that I can't even stand) and the bad thing is that it's uncomfortable (because it is so crowded that I can't even stand). The younger me would never have encouraged such corrupt behavior, but I kinda get it now. I don't have enough pocket-money. I need to save some to buy nice things for myself. And perhaps this is the problem with the entire country: no one ever has enough money. There are so many people and so less resources.

On my way to the station, I pass a slum area, and I've realized how far gone this country is. There's too much traffic, too much pollution, uneducated people spitting everywhere and forming dumps of garbage near their houses. The smoke irritates my throat. I don't think it's possible for anyone to do anything about this place. Personally, I would like to convert all the slum areas into artificial forests, but then where would we relocate the poor people to? It sucks, man. I'm not even sure if I want to live in this country anymore. It's the same everywhere, I swear. Dwarka is the only clean and planned place there is. I'm losing all of my optimism about doing anything for this country, because I feel it would have no effect. Look at the size of this mess! What made me think people would change? Education is the only solution. But we don't have enough schools, nor do we have sincere teachers in government schools. They're corrupt and lazy, which again results from a lack of education. That's the attitude everyone has here.

Maybe I became attached to this city because I loved a guy who was very desi.  I had never found Delhi charming before that. To me, he represented India because he spoke Hindi, loved rajma-chawal  and chai.... I don't know. I guess if you love a person, you begin to love their culture and style and hobbies and everything attached to them, everything that reminds you of them. And now that I'm out of that mental state, staying here means nothing to me.

This gives birth to a new fear— what if I fall in love here again and want to stay here forever and then I find no job here? And even if I do, do I even want to stay here anymore? And what is making me reconsider my decision of not going abroad?

What is bothering me about this country is that no one is happy here. There is no spirituality in people. It scares me sometimes. People don't think about their lives. They all are zombies. Most of them are sleepy in the metro, as if they got out of the house as soon as they woke up. No one smiles. All of this could change if people woke up early, drank water and did a bit of meditation. I bet, after they come home, they are so tired that they either take a nap or watch the TV. How many of them think about their day? How many of them spend time with their kids? 

I bet a lot of them don't. 

I've seen 10-year-old kids in my society, who've been given smartphones by their ignorant parents, sitting on benches and tapping away instead of playing with others like I used to as a child. Why do people have kids if they don't want to spend time with them? Why produce a living organism and leave him to cope with the world with nothing but a device to help him that won't help him develop emotionally or love him or teach him right from wrong? What if the child gets addicted to violent video games and develops aggressive tendencies or something? There's this kid who once came up to me with his friends and told me he would slap me. He probably thought he was being cool. I told him off, but I don't know if it had any effect on him. People like him, who don't think about their lives so much, grow up to be just like their parents and the cycle keeps repeating itself. Most people don't plan beyond a week. Many don't have any dreams or goals in life. They don't plan things consciously; they just let life happen to them. They get up in the morning and repeat the same day every day. "Automatons"— there, that's the perfect word for them.

They say whatever happens, happens for the good and when the time is right. What if I find the romance that I covet in New Zealand? What then? Maybe it won't be such a bad thing, after all. Also, the person who is meant to be with me will eventually find his way to me, so why worry now?

I should be focusing more on getting outta here.

❄