Rewind to the year 2010

The year is 2010, the tail end of it actually. The past few years have been so frantic. Tumbling into each other at breakneck speed almost.  The ordinary and the extra ordinary. The landmark moments and the silent, quiet, routine ones. Beneath it all simmers a gently raging thought, a dialogue, an urge to understand the process of it all. Often caught unawares while driving, staring into the red and green blinking lights, surrounded with sky scrapers, incessant honking and an ever increasing list of things to be done, matters to be dealt with.

The thought, sometimes triggered by a song, an article in the paper, a scene from a film, hits out. But mostly raising its head during conversations of the ethereal kinds with like-minded people. Or staring right into a woman's eyes momentarily understanding the unsaid. Feeling that we are changing, all of us. Just like the ever changing cities and cultures we live in. Everyone is stepping up to keep pace with life itself. With their own reality. Playing running and catching in the urban jungles surrounded with a sea of energies.

Somewhere in between the mish mash of all this living, a close friend makes a yearly trip to India. And just like that, late at night, we find ourselves sitting on a mat, exchanging our thoughts. The only time when the house is quiet, when the kids have gone to bed, the kitchen has been wrapped up, the lights dimmed and the ever present sounds of the apartment and the city quietened. That magical hour which takes you right back to who you were, where you are, and where you are headed to. That one conversation that we record on our cell phones, she and I, so that we can play it back years later. And that is how the thought latches on, we, the women of the urban cesspool, who are we? We, mere girls a few years back, how did we become the decision makers of our own life? What do we think of? How do we make sense of our lives? Why don't we hear more from the likes of us? Our influences so similar, our choices so diverse. Choices that we sometimes look back upon regretfully and choices we sometimes celebrate. The thought was here to stay. It was time finally to make sense of those choices. 2010, almost the tail end of it.









Written By
Roohi