Life – this one or that one?

He came down from his fourth floor office to take a smoke.
Took out the white stick, lit it and then aimed the little wax matchstick into
the small hole on the sidewalk. The matchstick landed on its end, on the
perimeter of the hole and bounced out. He aimed it perfectly, all the other
butts of cigarette of others have landed in, but his small matchstick failed to
go in.

Why didn’t it go in? Is this an indication of his life? Will
all his sincere efforts come back from the edge of success? Is this what future
holds for him?

Come on, that’s not life. Its just a hole on the pavement.
Look in front. Look at the burkha clad girl coming out of the college, look at
her eyes. Though society has barred her from connecting with the world, she
devouring it all with her crystal gaze. That’s life for you.

But look at the smoke coming out of the light between my
fingers. Isnt it what I am doing to my life? Isn’t my life going all out into
that smoke? Wont it be soon that only few pieces of ash that will remain of me?

Why worry about the smoke and ash when you still have fire
burning? You are giving pleasure with that fire. Look beside you again… the
toddler in her sparkling pink dress, wobbles on her tiny legs, goes and sits
beside the naked son of the sweeper. Both playing with the empty pack of
cigarette and the rock, while both their mothers are busy. Do they mind what
life has in store for them? Does the dust they are sitting on bother them?

But isn’t that important, to think about where we are
headed? Isn’t it a result of all the dust that has settled down on us from our
past?

<>If that’s so, then why is that cobbler still smiling while
mending the lady’s slipper while she bargains with the fruit vendor? Is he
bothered about the dirt stained legs of his or his hair that’s grayed by the
dust? Aren’t we supposed to enact our parts in this drama of life? Don’t we all
know that it’s a comedy we are in. Happiness at the end has been announced in
the very beginning. We have the choice, the choice to take up our role, but we
know the ending – the ending of joy. If we stick to our role till the end, that
is. Those who forgot their lines, has been booed out of the show, eliminated
from the act; they won’t be able to see the end of the act.  But we who are enacting, and chosen to keep
on delivering our part will see the end.

The cigarette has ended; he throws the butt to the ground,
quashes it with his foot, and kicks it towards the hole. The butt slides on the
pavement. Its moving too fast, he thinks, wont make it this time too! The butt
flies over the hole, bounces off the stick jutting out of the hole and neatly
lands inside.