With great difficulty Prashant opened the umbrella but he was 'a bit too late.' The rain outdid him, by kissing his lips, flirting with his neck, dancing on the t-shirt that snuggly covered his belly, playing with his feet before finally being one with the ground.
'A bit too late', hadn't he heard this phrase before? Yes, it was from the doctor, who now he knew as his psychiatrist. The psychiatrist had given him the sweet news that he had been medicated with psychiatric drugs for a week, without his knowledge. He had then said that he was lucky to have received care soon, and had it been 'a bit too late', his symptoms would have worsened and he would have lost his job!
'As though he cared about his job!', Prashant sniggered to himself bitterly, drenched and angry. He hated his job, and now he had been taken to a psychiatrist by his wife, so that he would get better soon and not lose his job, and his place in the world. The irony was too much to handle.
'Click', a notification on his mobile, gave him some relief, he had finally got a cab and the driver was two minutes away.
The thundering clouds with heavy wind threatening to blow his hair away as the taxi sped towards his home, made Prashant wonder, which was more turbulent, the storm outside or the storm within? The rain didn't seem to stop and Prashant grimaced. The radio was bothering him too, giving him a headache, yet he didn't have a heart to tell the taxi driver to stop the radio.
The song:
'Zindagi ek safar hai suhana
Yahaan Kal Kya ho, kisne jaana' ,
( 'Life is a beautiful journey,
One doesn't know what will happen in the future')
Played from the radio, and Prashant couldn't help but smile at its timing. When was the last time had he enjoyed his cab ride back home? He used to love it, didn't he? The wind blowing through his hair and him clicking pictures of the mundane happenings on the street during the signals. Once he had clicked a picture of a young girl selling flowers and it had won him an award at a photography contest. When had it all stopped? And why?
And Prashant couldn't seem to remember any concrete reason for beginning to hate his job as a lead architectural photographer at his firm. When did it decline? The passion and love for his job? Perhaps it had all begun when he started feeling the need to be something more. Since then he started running behind growth and stopped enjoying his present. Stopped cherishing his marriage, playing with his dog and every small thing that gave him happiness. He now felt a deep emptiness within, which he couldn't explain. Perhaps Kavita and his psychiatrist were not completely wrong. He was clinically depressed. And instead of saying everything is fine, he should start accepting and facing it, only then will he really be fine. Only then will he recover?
'Sir, is this your home?', the cab driver asked and Prashant smiled and replied, yes this is my home.
As he opened his house gate, Prashant silently thanked Kishore Kumar, as his song playing on the radio a few minutes ago, had opened his eyes to relish life and every part of it that's served on the platter - the sweet, the bitter and the in-between.