Traffic snarl the reason for joy!
A fortyfive minutes’ travel took me two (happy) hours today. For the first time in my life the traffic snarl did not put me off, but made me tremble with joy and excitement!!! Well, let me tell you why… the road that I was taking was also being taken by my most loved Shahrukh Khan and that too almost at the same time... Ohh God we were breathing in the same air!!! My head swirled at the dizzy thought…
The crowds around my cab were all going berserk and the police went equally berserk trying to manage them crowd... And hanging above from where he was passing by were a series of large glossy hoardings of no one else but him again… What a lovely scene, I wish I could have captured it.
For a painful minute, I too felt like getting down from the cab, and seek him from above the sea of people standing there, allow the sweaty crowds to hurl me towards him, allow the high afternoon sun to burn my skin while I keep looking at him, allow time to move on and delay all my pending chores while I try to stop time by taking him in my heart through the passage of my eyes… But something inside stopped me “No, I will not seek him, not today, not here. One day I will speak face to face with him, on equal intellectual grounds, even though I would not equal him in money or social standing, I will equal him in the intellectual plain.”
On that thought, I stopped looking at his direction. The sweltering dingy cab snarled on into the crowd. Closing my eyes, I realized I love the guy too damn much, from the past 26 years. Never for a moment had I stopped loving him. On this sticky summer afternoon in the heat of Kolkata, inside a dusty yellow rusty taxi, I floated into a beautiful ecstatic dream of meeting him in a reception lobby. He looks at my direction, and I quietly catch his attention when I say “Shahrukh. Thank you”. Looking puzzled, he replies “Ma’am, I am not quite sure what you are thanking me for. Have we met? Do I know you?” With a glowing smile, I reply, “You have never met me Shahrukh, but I have met you, I have met you a thousand times; in my dreams at night, in my thoughts during the day. During my growing up years, and during my adolescent days, the days I were lonely and wanted to smile, the glorious days when I wanted to share my happiness with one great friend of mine, all those moments, all those times, you were there with me, sharing my moments, encouraging me, motivating me. All those moments, yes, I have met you. So today, I want to thank you for being there for me, and for many others million such hearts, for years and years. You have spread happiness and joy to millions around. Your job may be acting, but to me acting is just one tiny little aspect of you. I know your main mission of your life has been always to spread joy in millions of hearts. I thank this angel for being born, for taking this human form, and for working for people’s happiness day and night. I am happy to have lived at the time and era when the angel in the form of Shahrukh Khan lives”.
The taxi halted at a signal, breaking my dream. I looked up, and a honk screamed nearby. I had a hint of moisture peeping through the slit of my eyes. I was unsure if those were tears of joy for living during the times of Shahrukh, or were they tears of gratitude for all the times that he had been there for me. Well, I came to know a few hours later, while I sat down to write this piece; those were tears of love, of overwhelming welling ocean of love trapped in my tiny little fluttering heart.
