layers

When I was a kid, I spent 10–15 minutes every day waiting for my school bus at my bus stop. On some days, the waiting was longer because the bus had to cross a railway crossing to get into my village. Near my bus stop, there was an ice cream seller who used to sell ice cream in those orange-colored ice cream cones on a cart. He was from either Bihar or UP. He used to rent a small room near my bus stop for himself, and every summer he came to our village to sell ice cream.

He was just 5–6 years older than me and was quite smart, young, and good-looking (model-like facial features, maybe because he was from near Nepal and had Mongolian genes), despite being extremely poor. I think he went to school for a couple of years and then started selling ice cream. I don’t even know his name.

When I got into high school, he stopped coming to our village. After finishing high school, I shifted to the city for the first time to stay in a hostel for my college education. I never thought about him—not even a single memory of him crossed my mind throughout all those years.

Now, after 9 years, when I was lying in my bed in a different city, in a different country, out of nowhere he came into my mind. Before that, my previous thought was that I am not doing much with my life, that I am not giving my 100%. I started thinking about him and what he might be doing with his life now. If he is alive, he must be in his early 30s. I don’t know.

But the thing I do know is that he was not as privileged as I am—to receive a college education, to go for a master’s degree in a different country, or even to have a dream of doing something big. The privilege to dream and the possibility that your future will be better than your present is a blessing that not everyone receives.

Some people are not lucky enough to even have the opportunity to think about anything other than where their next meal will come from. I wish everyone could pursue what they want, but I am not sure if society is designed in a way that allows everyone to pursue their dreams instead of living like robotic slaves. I will try my best to do what I love.