In The Shadows

In the shadows of the old banyan tree nestled a disheveled young boy. His unkempt hair and worn out clothes enticed me. The dried trail of tears spread across his tender cheeks. The innocence that sparkled in his wet eyes depicted the miseries of his fate. Perhaps he was one of those children, who unable to comprehend their fathomless existence, subtly battle for their survival day after day. He simply hunkered there and the shadow of the enormous tree sheltered him from the seething and scorching heat. When he gaped at people buying food from the nearby vendor, his stomach crunched and ached in hunger. He could not conjure up when he last had a full meal.

I longed to feed him, clad him in neat clothes and foster him, not only because I despise poverty and such a rueful sight crushed my heart, but because to me he was a personification of the dreams I had conjured up as a child. My innocent dreams conceived at a tender age, dreams which had become dusty in the pursuit of erudition and other mundane and prosaic gains. I know not where these dreams originated from or how they thrived in my psyche. Forsaken dreams which I realize and apprehend once in a while but never had ample time to live them. Dreams, which like that little shabby boy, are squished under the impediments and onuses of life. My rearing may shade my dreams from the veracities of life, like the huge banyan tree, but it repudiates to provide a medium for their nourishment. My childhood dreams, clad in rags, plead in despair for diligence. I do not wish to renounce my worldly ties and bonds in the quest of my dreams, instead I pine to take a fleeting hiatus from life and live my dreams.