Shrinking Spaces

The Indian economy is growing, so is the population, everything in this country is on an upward trend - for the good, people say-, and the market is a proof. The exploding urban scenario is here to stay. Glass castles called workspaces and neighborhoods that have become 30 storied apartments dot the landscape. Playgrounds and open spaces are a thing of the past, and no, I am not talking about 2100 or some alien planet, but the very places that we are living in.

As we walk in the streets today, we can see these simple realities surrounding us. Roads are overcrowded, buses eyeing for space where only a car can go, cars eyeing for space were only a bicycle can go, bikes on footpaths if there was one. I see children playing out in the roads as their places of play have been taken over. Morning walks can be accompanied with the whiff of stench from uncleared garbage as roads have become their residing ground, houses with boundary walls an artifact to be preserved.

The way we are hurtling forward, wars will not be fought over religions or boundaries, but over want of space to live. No wonder the outer space and the arctic seabeds have become the next focus of the so-called developed nations. Before its too late to be unwinded, let the creative spaces get to work to get the open spaces out in the open. Let there be more spaces created for the future generations to grow up.

Life out in the fast lane

Well I am 26 years old, and I can write upto this very point. Grew up listening to the summer of 69 and the boy bands, playing cricket in the gullies of my neighborhood. From were I was to were I am today thoughts, images and memories crosses in those little times that I can spare now, like those by gone days only to be questioned for what we are today. Was it right or wrong?

Life has become like a countdown to the launch of a space shuttle. Time matters even to say hi to your loved ones to meeting deadlines. Everything has to be done within those limited period, as we humans keep on inventing newer machines to do our jobs, our lives have become more and more mechanical. We are always on the run, for the fear of loosing out or missing out on something, but in the process we have lost our contact with self. Not even finding time to reciprocate the love that people try to give and even to return the smile from the passing friend as though he was a stranger. Behind the unattainable glories that awaits in this mindless world we desire to live.

Are we going wrong some were, did we get lost in the transition from the childhood that we once cherished for the dreams that we desired for? More to do in lesser time with a just in time principle. Yes we have to work, we have to live a life, we have to earn, we have to give back to all those who cared, but is this out of a reason of so called necessity or is it for that we don’t have choice or is it for the life that we want to live to. A choice that we need to choose, before its too late, just like some of my friends had realized. Have seen marriages being shattered in short life spans, have seen workplaces getting changed over the night, have seen friends become foes. Is this the life that we truly need to live?

As I sit back, I wonder do I still have the time to change all these perception, these events. With performance a yardstick to live, I wish I could change life and live for a better cause, if not for me for the ones that cared.