LETTER TO A COMMON MAN

Dear ordinary man,

I am someone who is very jealous of your life. How can you lead such a simple life while mine is so very complicated? How can you stay happy under every circumstance?  No offence to you but I am 29 now, single, working in a multinational company and earning a hefty salary. But my life is strictly according to a routine. Each day I have to get up at 7, do my work and rush for office before 9. I don’t even get the fortune of having breakfast each day. Even on the weekends, If work commands, I have to do them and my social life is a mess. The only glance I get of people outside my office is the time I get holidays and I go to my hometown or on some vacation. The leisure moments I get is limited to the occasional movie with my colleagues or some lunch or dinner with a bunch of friends.  Whenever I visit home, my family is so madly happy that this time we will do something different, but I never become an active participant in their plans. By the time I reach home, the only thing on my mind is food cooked by mom and sleep. I never get enough of both here. As it is I get only a week off to visit home, that too in every 6-8 months. On days when I return late from office, I don’t even get dinner. What hurts is I have money in my wallet yet I am so dead tired that I don’t dare go outside again and I live on Maggie. My house feels so empty. The work load in office is so much, I feel one day I will die of it. at the end of the day, I just feel hollow. Sometimes I just wish I had a simple life, that I live with my family, to have someone waiting for me at home, to serve me dinner and ask me how my day was, that I could leave all the worries of office there only. I wish I had you life, a simple common man’s life.

From,

A jealous guy.

Dear Mr. jealous,

I can understand your sentiments. Any guy like you would obviously feel jealous of my home, family and 9 to 5 job. Its like a dream come true to all of you. I find it incredibly ironic though. Let me tell you something, the small house that I live in, that your girlfriend finds incredibly cute, is really very tight and I only reason I live there is because I cant afford a bigger one. My kid that look so adorable to you is the reason I cant sleep at night. I stay awake thinking about my kid’s future because I don’t have enough saved for her. screw college, I fear I wont be able to afford a good school for her. yes, I have a 9-5 job. The only cause I have to come home early is that I have a hell lot of work there too. Every evening my family waits for me to come home, when I do, I see expectation on their faces and I know I can never fulfill them. My wife looks at the monthly budget before we plan a dinner outside. So while you sit in your comfy chair in an air conditioned cabin, I work like an ass in an office that is loaded with obnoxious smelling people threatening to complain to my officer if I don’t do their work first and I don’t even have a fan overhead. While you go on vacations and trips in the name of recreation, I plan throughout the year to visit my parents once or buy them something. So I end up cancelling my visit, instead send the money so that they can get something useful. While you brag about having so much but feeling lonely, I feel I will never have enough. That’s the side of a common man that you never see. Our lives aren’t simple, we have a lot more problems than you. The only reason you see us laughing is that we have so much burden on ourselves that we don’t get time to howl about getting happiness. All I know is that 20 years from now I will still be having the same life, will never have enough and will try to blame it all on god for cursing me to be a common man and you will be sitting in some bunglow enjoying tea with you wife and planning holidays. If I could trade this life for yours, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Regards,

The unlucky common man.

Dear pessimists,

While you both nag about each other I come nearer each day.

With love,

Death. 

HAPPY ENDING

I had been sitting at the same table for over three hours now. Already five cups of coffee poured down my throat. People near me were starting to notice and were looking at me like I was some sort of alien. Every now and then I would meet few pairs of curious eyes trying to guess my “story”. perhaps it had something to do with the fact that i was the only person sitting there who didn't have the company of  an individual of the same species but opposite gender. Even the waiter looked at me now and somehow I got the feeling as if I had grown two horns, or i had a tail that was lurking out. Finally the waiter asked as I ordered my 6^th cup, “mam are you expecting someone?”

I looked up from the card I was holding and flashed a smile at him, “no. but I assure you I am not a nut case.”

His return smile was apologetic. The piece of paper I had in hand had got me so anxious that I couldn’t sit in my office. I had been expecting it and had been worried that it was late… now that I finally had it, I was restless. The feeling can be compared to admitting to your crush for the first time that u have a crush on him!

Well that was a bad example, considering that I had done the very mistake not so long ago. I had been madly, irrevocably, irresistibly, hopelessly and helplessly in love with Adi for the last 3 years. Finally when I mustered the courage and told him, he had rejected me. I had spent days, weeks and months crying.

Yet here I was. Holding a letter to my happiness. Feeling happy that this time my crush wasn’t some guy. I am doing a job that pays my bills, but never fills my soul. This was what led me to peruse a crazy idea that gave birth to a thought, eventually a dream which is becoming real pretty soon.

I still remember the day when some friends were having dinner at my house and spoke highly of my cooking. Among those compliments, laughter and jokes I got a crazy idea to open a restaurant.

And here I am today, holding an invitation card to my restaurant’s inauguration. The first of its lot. Soon to be distributed. It brought a smile on my face and I thought that, may be a happy ending doesn’t include a guy, may be its me! Picking up the pieces and putting them together to make a better picture out of life.