Chasing moments

I am one of those who believes life is lived in discrete precious moments. In fact life is made up of tiny moments, each like one precious pearl, and we must live it like that. We lose so many moments of life all the time in trivialities we ironically call 'living', in sorrows and whines and all the muck of this world. Yet the few we manage to grasp are what define for us our life and its purpose forever. They become pearls of memory, or lessons of living. They become the windows from which we can look at our life, or the meaning of life itself. That is why, I am the silly one who tries to 'create' moments sometimes and to engrave them in memory. Silly but harmless fun!

This afternoon was a mini-exercise in creating moments from the Stockholm stay, now in its last month. I had a few hours to spare, and felt less lazy than usual. So I wandered to the city centre and started walking around familiar streets, now beautifully decorated for the approaching Christmas. Evening fell in and the lights started looking better in the darkness(my watch read 3 pm though, and my watch is working fine! :P ) I went in all those big shops I never went in, maunnly for window shopping. I wandered observing how people rushed about or strolled, how they behaved, the expressions on their face, the way they talked, the way everything existed around me..it started feeling surreal so I went up to the big Culture House library and fished out a Vikram chandra to read, sitting comfortably near the glass wall overlooking the sprawling city beneath. More wandering and more shopping later, I finally got home very tired but preserving a treasure of tiny moments.

However, the incident of the day was while I was coming back on the metro. There were a couple of Indian guys standing almost next to me talking in Hindi. Now because it's so rare, and feels so nice to hear something in a recognisable language in the chatter around me, I always turn around to notice who the speaker it is (even English, anything but Swedish) So these guys were blurting about their work when I sort of turned to notice them for a few seconds. One of them noticed me and began talking about me as I silently listened all the while turning away. The other said in hindi, so what if she's looking at us? Why do you have notice? Let her if she wants to. He replied, I dont have a problem yar, just that it feels good when some girl is looking at you. And so they continued, while I had a hard time suppressing my laughter. I had to get off soon, and while exiting, I turned to them and said, "Have you ever thought what if somebody could actually understand what you are talking, I mean ek billion Indians hain, kai jagah ho sakte hain na..." And walked out finally laughing.

I bet they were a little stunned.