Urban cage and a dreamy escape

Ganga was flooded. It was a sight to see. It was as if She is rebelling against the humans for the kind of apathy we have displayed to her. The sky was faded in a bluish sense. We don't know if it's a morning or an evening. The height of the swelling water was touching the sky. It was bloated and running in unimaginable volume. The ghats were drowned. Local people had to move up & leave their businesses behind to save themselves from the calamity. Everyone could hear the sound of the flowing water in a tumultuous rung, aggressive yet beautiful, fearful but poetic. A naive would think that an ocean is emerging out of the mountains. It is something else. More abstract than a reality.

Raghav, a full-time city dweller, lives afar from the Ganga river. Yet, he has traveled many times to the city of Haridwar & Rishikesh, first out of curiosity and later with the non-defying crave to calm down his bursting nerves with the company of the river. He is still in his late twenties. His upbringing has been such that his career is forced upon him and he just went with the flow. Well, he has an upbringing of a typical lower middle-class Indian. He accepted coldly whatever knocked his door. No counselling whatsoever, only fancy ambitions. He now lives as a white-collar migrant away from his native place. He works ten hours a day, vigorously picks up phone calls, attend to sales queries and only find a sweet delight at the end of the month when he receives a message from the bank that he has been credited with a meagre salary.

These urban cities has alienated him. He couldn't make friends because of his introverted soul. Home is always far and now a dreamy idea to visit someday. The city is unspiritual. He feels disconnected. It is populated with dead high rises and honking machines running maddeningly through every nooks and corners. Sometimes their fake materialistic aura seeps inside his own rural soul. Those are the hardest days to pass. Those days he feels most unambitious and unmotivated. Fearful as he always been, he feels caged to attend to his job. Make a sale, cater to month-end targets, solve operation-related issues, fight, and also lie to people sometimes! Living is a matter of imprisoned livelihood. Ancient people had feudalism and slavery... They were tied under the blue sky. Modern men are decorated within four walls of grandeur structure. Added to that, they are gifted with unending dilemmas & television.

This makes Raghav to tend to visit Ganga. His mind dwells upon the mountains. When his emotions run high and bring misery to him, he contracts to his innermost cravings. During the day, he feels annoyed and at night, he dreams. He fight his dilemma in his bed. It is unending. His mind could not be becalmed... He seeks constant escape. He is still having a living child inside him who keeps knocking the door.

Ganga is flooded. Raghav wants to take a dip in it. He wants to purify his soul. He watches it from a distance. He knew the feeling standing by this river. The ghats are flooded and so is his mind. Yet he thinks that he could manage to take a dip & be delighted with her spiritual touch. He is surrounded by green & tall mountains. They are there for countless years. The air is in hurry. The time is pacing fast. He is drifting. Raghav takes a deep breath and gathers his courage to take a dip into the cold water. As soon as he starts to run towards it, out of excitement his eyes are opened and he found himself in his two-room apartment. Its midnight. He already knew that it's just another dreamful dream.

Laal Man