A Lost Soul

He stood tall, on the lonely rock, gazing in to the sea,

Hopeless, jobless and aimless, as any guy of 21 can be,

His red shirt shone in the midnoon sun, and anyone from far

Could see it was DJ&C, bought from big bazaar.

His face looked defeated and there was despair in his eyes,

Like that of innocent convict who was put to prison for life.

I walked over to him, not to comfort, not to act benign,

But to satisfy the perverted sadist in me with a boy who looked he has lost his kin.

“Btech” he murmured, “it’s a bloody four years for my life I have wasted,

And just for the record, there is not a liquor I have not tasted,

Through the past 3 years, I have been both ‘high’ and ‘low’,

But now at the end of it, I just seem to have lost my flow,

Not knowing where to go, not knowing what to do,

 I stand here at the crossroads,

Like a helpless king in the game of chess,

Who has lost all the men on the chessboard”.

I laughed to myself hearing his Btech story

Coz I felt, his puerile thoughts was the reason for his worry

For in his immature world, such a thought won’t be occurring,

That at the end of every sad ending,

there is a dawn of new happy beginning.

Tired and shabby he looked, after a long day at the beach

I invited him to ma house and bought a bottle of beer for each

Smiling at the bottles rather than at me,

He came for dinner to my house by the sea

After a delicious dinner of rice and prawns curry

The red shirt guy began his story,

“From the time I can remember, I wanted to be an engineer

Why, what  or how, these answers are still not clear.

Tenth was over and then came plus 2,

I had joined pc classes without even a clue.

Time passes quickly, and so did those two years

And at the end of it, the road to CET became clear.

And during that time I never (even once)stopped to wonder,

Whether joining CET would be my life’s biggest blunder????

And hence I joined, with lots of hopes n expectation

Yes, hopes about placement, job and better recognition.

Then came the global recession, where the us markets fell

And along with it, pristine hopes of mine as well.

Placements dried up and the future looked bleak

The ranking of my college had fallen down steep.

All these didn’t bother the new freak in me,

Who had taken life easy as one can be.

3 years over, and there is not a thing I have not done

Locked horns with teachers and partied till the clock struck one.

Internals seemed predictable and writing series exams became an option

Just make sure at the end of each sem, u have enough to pay condonation.

And talking about love, I have fallen in its lust not once but twice

And it’s funny that I haven’t yet got anyone who deserved to b ma wife.

So at this juncture of my life I stand,

Yes,

I am gonna be an engineer, but don’t know which field I am gonna land.

It’s a long empty road in front of me,

My studies are almost over and I am crawling towards freedom,

New hopes, new aspirations and more importantly deep inside, new fears

Fear of self dependence or rather fear of independence.

Like a pregnant lady, I count each day

Because the time is not far, for the parting of ways

Yes, freedom is at the door,

Freedom from books, freedom from teachers,

Freedom from 18 years of my life spent in hearing lectures.

Yet here I am, down on my stomach

Like a year old baby

Crawling n crawling n crawling, towards the door to freedom.”