Three Minutes

I stepped out a while back, to get myself something to eat. As I walked along the road, to the near by shop, I was only thinking about what I was gonna get. As I finally bought it, the events of a long day were playing like a movie in my head.

But as I started walking towards home, I opened my eyes and my thoughts to the world outside, and I realised - what I think, or what I feel, doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

A nearby school had just left, a little kid came by, and asked the fellow at the shop, "Uncle, yeh vada pav kitne ka hai?" The guy said that it costed seven bucks, and the child quietly walked away. It was so unnerving, so touching and the same time a little sad. Ever thought that it costed 7 bucks, and probably more elsewhere, before buying a vada pav?

A big crowd of ladies had gathered, discussing recipes and husbands, as they waited for their children's school buses. All of them worried over what they were going to cook for dinner, and how they felt less loved by their families, but never letting that show on their faces. It had been a while since I had seen that.

I continued walking back, and the mouth-watering smell of warm sweet corn being roasted on the coal wafted out. People of all ages enjoyed bhutta in this weather.

A lady walking beside me was scolding what looked like an 8 year old kid, about losing his water bottle, and yet, carrying his heavy school bag on her shoulder, as he looked down guiltily.

Auto drivers and two-wheeler riders cursed in their heads, as the chattering pedestrians blocked more than half the road.

In the midst of all this, a girl - going to get junk food to feel better, simply because she wanted to get over being alone, and was terribly missing her parents - walks home quietly, lost in her thoughts, just wanting to sleep.