WHOSE STORY DO YOU WANT???

Is it a nameless faceless crowd? I thought not.

People differ here, I see them in all their quirky variations. High achievers, low self esteem issues, superiority complexes, glorious dreamers, amazing artists, the super whiz kids…The look uptos, the cant get throughs, the pitiers, the unsavory, the nocturnal, the diurnal, the blind, the mute, the magnifique raconteurs…

And it is the same reason I look at them. It is their stories…

The first month I was the meek one. Walking through the corridors observing all that went on. The charades, the breakdowns, the adrenaline rushes of unknown acquisitions… how they thrilled me, the story teller in me. At first I wanted to stop every such person and talk to them about their story. I was a blank slate wanting to fill in every color. I signed up for every activity I knew the meaning of, and some more. Then I learnt how to persist, and how to let go. What to learn, what to give up, and how to give up gracefully, and gracelessly.

I got a label too. But took a while, a year to be precise, to find the niche. A writer. I knew I was, but not defined. Not all encompassing. My subject still is people and their stories.

Some had fought their parents, earned their way into college, the others who hadn't worked even to make a meal for themselves but were amazing at subtle abstract analysis, confused actors, depressed poets, silent photographers, foodie comrades, the perfectionists, the obsessed, the geniuses and their sidekicks. All of them walking rushing, pacing, lazing, tapping, flourishing through the same corridors. Oh the sheer intensity and quantity of stories they had to tell and the scarcity of time was almost physically painful for me to bear. The great auditorium where the realities of every deserving living thing fought for time and space to capture the attention of the world. The thrill of the pulsating audience, trance-like and spell bound. At other times, the audience stood up and talked, sang, and chanted together.

I was gripped by the energy around me, everything outside the walls seemed mundane. But then the walls expanded, the world around seeped in and I could see the energy, the stage, the actors in everyone around! Understanding individuality and using to cater to the demands of the crowd. The composition of the crowd, its strata was amazing. And just at its boundaries were me and my friends. We fit into them, but we were still meandering at the periphery. More than once we became the outcasts of the system as did many others. The best thing is, nobody is stagnant. People faded, people arrived, people stayed. And stories! Endless stories were passed on to us. People grew. But my childlike lenses have survived...