Often the richest sources go neglected. Lost amongst the routine and the crowd, yet the lifeline of the city. Exploring one street at a time, creating one story at a time.
He was the listening ear to so many tales. Some of them with the sweetest plots and some stuffed with cruelty all along.
Someone yelled, “Taxi!”, and the listener slammed his brakes.He had seen every story with all its twists and turns.
He was there that night, when a couple drenched in rain called out for him. They hurried inside, all soaked yet refusing to let go of each other. He could see a story warming up. He could see that spark in their eyes and a splint of fire between them that thawed them back to reality.
He had also seen two drained out eyes, cramming himself up inside. The life had been squeezed out by the cubicle he’d been residing in. He was tired of being a rat. Underpaid and overqualified was as if a norm of living. He was in the corporate, but the dried up paint of his fingers, from yesterday, narrated something completely different.
The driver even witnessed tears. The playful ones, when the father tickled his son on the backseat. Their bond blossomed with every tear he shed.
But he had also seen some painful ones, when the same bond was falling apart, piece by piece. The father now, an ‘old man’ and a ‘burden’, shed tears as the cab approached the old age home.
He was only a passive listener, he never had any say.
He had seen happy faces going to the hospital
He had seen weeping face going to the mortuary
He had seen hopeful faces going to the airport
He had seen nervous faces going for interviews.
He had seen everyone, but somehow he went unnoticed.
The 3 A.M. Verses 