One fine day, we all will look out of photo frames adorned with jasmine garlands and burning incense sticks. People come and bow to us -- shedding a tear or two if we are lucky -- walk away with solemn steps, hung heads and drooping shoulders, to stand in groups and whisper about our merits and what a sad situation it is. The spring in their steps returns when they step out of the premises and instantly forget the face in the frame. I sometimes wonder if grief too is just a show-off. I don't blame them, for life goes on... with or without us.
'Caught in a strange land in a net with other butterflies, I'm a caterpillar yet undecided to remain a caterpillar and perish or turn into a beautiful butterfly and live a life full of joy.' Readers don't laugh. But I came up with this one night recently when I was travelling in a train. I tossed and turned, not being able to sleep, upset over unexplainable things and frustrated over events not in my control. Then it occurred to me that our life and its usefulness depends on our decisions -- whether to remain a crawling caterpillar whose existence otherwise is either ignored by all and sundry or who is cursed for just being there and thrown out with a stick, or to develop wings of life and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly whom everybody adores for its beauty and colour, for its flitting liveliness, for its service to the flower's pollination... I thought that I should be a butterfly, of service to others, but then again I thought, anyway, who really cares?
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