I know it’s hard to thrive on these streets where a gentle breeze of money comes at you, touches you and leaves certain impression for survival. Money has become a synonym for such survival where a life rumbles in agony, where voices echo — of sufferings, of caring, of struggles, of stumbles, of corruptions, of hopes, of despairs, of trust and care. These streets — they continue to grow with such apparitions.
I love to walk. Trust me. I walk not because I don’t have enough money for local vehicles but walking seems to be the only thing I am good at. I walk. I walk. Tap. Tap. Tap. I feel connected to the world when I walk, especially on these haunted streets. And every step I vouch, there seems to be a chain of thoughts being avalanched in my mind cave. The surrounding seems to be more closer to me than it had ever been in the past, in the yesterday I was living in. Certain street signs right there, a name of a shop which I hadn’t noticed, a narrow alley to a dog-manifested roundabout, a dark passage to heaven, discovery of a new cafe somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the existence of that girl I thought I had seen before — all these seem to come alive when I walk.
Have you ever felt happy in your life? Or any recent event that you truly felt alive?
I find happiness in these steps I take; in those stranger-gazing moments; in those town-watching scenarios. I know life is busy, especially the recent times we are living in. We are always caught up in our own little, insignificant lives — tangled in the rush hours of modern garden of dreams. We are so much infatuated to our zombie-manifested work hours that we forget to realize who we truly are, what we have become and what the whole world is staring at. And in these poisoned times, I walk.
I walk not because I am addicted to these chemicals in the air that are sucking certain portions of my life I am having and shall have, but I simply love to walk. I love how those little children play on the streets. I love how those elderly folks talk about the country. I love how those boys stare at the girls’ ass and boobs. I love how those porters struggle. Above all, I love how people stare at my aweomse-ugly face and hippie-like dresses. I simple love these stuff. But this “love” is not “that” kind of love. I love the way the whole world, outside of my reach, has always been moving, irrespective of my own existence. I simple love to walk. Because when I walk I find inspiration from almost everything around me.
Ever heard of a boy carrying guitar and walking around in your neighborhood?
You probably haven’t because the neighborhood you are living in is not the same as where he roams. He wanders aimlessly like a mindless zombie. And the truth is he just carries his guitar but hesitates to play it due to insensitive mass around. So, he walks, walks and walks. That’s all to his life and life is all what walking has become to him.
It’s surprising that I get to discover urban areas while walking. But what’s intriguing is nobody knows where I had been to because I can always come up with good excuses to come home late or to make peace in the office’s attendance. You get it, right? Those who know me superficially always try to lecture me about these poisons in the air that are killing me. Of course I know it. I know I will die one day. I know how low our life expectancy is. If there’s something that’d kill me then it’d obviously be the caffeine overdose I might take some day to get relieve of the all the anxiety I have been suffering from. But walking has been a way of medication for me. I feel somewhat connected to my inner self during my urban expedition. It might not be the ideal kind of “peace” you fantasize about. But hey! Peace is just a state of mind.
On a serious note, people feel disturbed about my mental state which is always superimposed by uncanny, yet paradoxical feelings. People think I am lonely. I am suffering from depression. But that’s not it. I have never felt lonely while walking because I always have the “real me” with me while I walk. Of course there are times when I feel the lack of certain someone of opposite sex to whom I can share my these “Deep Meaningful Self Identification”. But those are the times I feel the necessity of a true love that I might not get to experience. And that might be the very reason I question the reality of love itself. Because I have seen many things I shouldn’t have seen during my little walk hours. Trust me. You wouldn’t want to fall in so-called love once you see such things that make you puke.
Walking alone doesn’t mean I am lonely
Let me make it very clear to you all. Being alone doesn’t imply you are lonely. Loneliness thrive when you feel the necessity of someone that you have been lacking in your life. Have you ever felt that there has always been this hole in your life that’s making something really incomplete? Have you ever felt that there is something missing in your life? Yup that’s loneliness. And I get bombarded by that thought sometime when I get deeper into my mind cave. But not generally walking on these haunted streets.
All these time I have felt the streets are haunted. But the reality is just the reverse. These streets are just the manifestation of my own thoughts. The symbolic links to my own existence. I have been haunting these streets — I guess walking alone has become more than just a habit. A way of life.