of whiskey and the weekend...

And so it happened that despite the fact that I don’t like drinking anymore, I had to attend a drink gathering thrown by my ‘onsite-returned’ colleagues. Just a day ago, I had thrown and broken the glass (of Whiskey) because I couldn’t take it anymore. Out of anger on myself, my shortcomings and my indiscipline – just after sipping less than half of the drink I threw the glass on the floor and walked out of the room leaving my roommates to clean the broken glasses on the floor. I felt bad later. I shouldn’t have done that.

But just one day passed and I was sitting with my colleagues savoring three different brands of 12 year old scotch, talking senselessly and what not. May be the reason would be that with some people your expectations are extremely high and you cannot see them indulged in such travesties. When you see the talents of these people being raped by pretense and indulgence, you just cannot tolerate that. Whereas with others, you know that they have reached the cul-de-sac of their minds and there is no road ahead for them, and so you are happy that they are at peace (or at least trying to be) with themselves, and there is no harm or hard emotions in being with them for a while.

The place was around 14 kilometers from where I live and the drinks went on till 4 in the morning. Everyone started to sleep when I and one of my colleagues decided to move out, go home and sleep. Everyone was insisting that we stayed there for the night, sleep there and go in the morning. The fear of unknown was thrown upon us in form of dark roads and notorious area, and we were left with choices.

Then I thought - it doesn’t matter to me where I sleep. What matters to me is where I wake up! Everyone in this world goes to sleep with a hope that when they wake up they will find peace, health and happiness. Some sleep after happy celebrations, some after unhappy frustrations, some after working hard the whole day and some after their tiresome journey. There are people sleeping on the sheds where buses stop during the days. There are people sleeping on the stairs of a temple. There are people sleeping in AC chambers in the highest rooms of the tallest towers. But people are not afraid or amused by where they sleep – they are afraid or amused by where they wake up. So I told my colleagues – ‘it is not that I am not comfortable sleeping here, it is just that I am not comfortable waking up here’.

So we two bid farewell to the rest, and started our way back at 4:30 in the morning, after lot of convincing and arguing. After driving with me for around 2 kilometers my colleague went on his way on a diversion and I kept moving at a time when the roads are so deserted that you wonder where the hell so many vehicles come on these roads at the rush hours. I drove my bike at a steady 30 kmph and kept thinking. If somebody asked me ‘what does life mean to you?’ what will I answer?

And then I tried answering myself: ‘Life is a strange struggle, which involves every man into it irrespective of his caste, creed, status or wealth. A man shivering on the footpath, who cannot sleep because he cannot afford a blanket, thinks about the struggle life will bring upon him the next morning. He thinks whether he will be able to get enough to eat or not. Then there is a man who is having dinner in the warmth of his home with his family. He is watching his LCD TV and wondering what surprises the stock market will bring tomorrow morning, how much profit will he make, how much loss he will incur. And there is a man who is wandering in the deserted roads of the city when nine tenth of the city is asleep, thinking all these thoughts.

Then suddenly a man out of nowhere signals me for a lift. Deserted roads, no traffic, and no human being… shall I give him lift or not… but I give. I wonder that ‘trust is a kind of thing which you cannot test without trusting…’ If everyone keeps thinking that I will trust the other person only when he trusts me – then nobody will trust anybody! It is just that without trusting someone, you cannot tell how trustworthy he or she is!

I drop the man on another diversion and reach home repeating my new found idea in my mind – "it doesn’t matter where I go to sleep, what really matters is where I wake up!…"