"You fuckin' idiot! You commit guys for pickup and you don't care to move your lazy ass out of this crazy wearhouse..." , Krishna shouted on Pranay as soon as he opened the door.
"Abe, how come you arrived today? I thought you are gonna arrive on 12th Aug" Pranay snapped looking at me, all confused and little bit surprised
"Yes !! IT IS 12th Aug today... chu***", I replied sounding frustrated and throwing down my orange jacket on my suitcase.
"Awee man.. I forgot. Sorry yaar !!"
"It's okey dude... Fortunately I found someone in my flight who had a pickup scheduled. That kinda saved my ass..."
"Thank God... I completely forgot!! You wanna have some water..."
"Ummm... yeah.. I guess so."
Pranay sent Ankush to bring me some water. There was no glass in the kitchen. Ankush found a small cup in the kitchen, whose handle is now broken, half-filled it with tap water and offered me. I have the exact same cup in my hand right now!!
"There's no glass.. sorry !!"
"Ahh.. it's okey.. Thanks :)"
This was how I got the taste of "THE United States" when I first arrived here in San Diego on this day, exactly 1 year ago. My missed pickup is still one of the evergreen topics of discussion and subsequent laughter. Although the place was new, people were new I was anything but afraid. Probably because I had left behind everything that was ever of any value to me, however I also had other heartful of dreams, some of which died with time, others were killed before I could even do something to realize them and I'm living the rest of them.
I have been awfully busy, ridiculously free, tremendously happy, painfully sad, unreasonably lucky, inexplicably unlucky, insanely high, pleasantly calm... everything I could be in these 365 days. I did everything I could do to please myself and sometimes punish myself. Yes.. time showed me everything. I laughed, I cried, I made friends, I earned foes... I missed nothing. And this exact thing gives me tremendous joy when I look back.
Today was tiring for me, with lot of work to do. But when I'll go to bed tonight, I'll have a smile on my face, for all the good time I had. Maybe afterwards, I'll have a couple of tears in my eyes too...for all the things I lost, for all the dreams those were shattered. But life moves on, it moved on. Maybe time changed me a bit. Maybe it changed me a lot. My priorities are different. My dreams are the same, but there's no driving force behind them...there's no motivation except myself. But I guess, that's pretty much I need. I'll again wake up tomorrow with a smile on my face... and the first statement I'll hear from one of my roomies will be...
"Fuck u swap... y din u wake me up earlier.."
And I'll say... "Good morning..." with a smile on my face, the smile that I wear for the entire day thinking that "I am on my way..."
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