Dream

For some years now, I have been fancying myself as a bum. A homeless. A destitute. But its turning out to be just one of the hundreds of dreams that I had as a child. And just as difficult. I am beginning to realize that it is not as easy as it appears to be. If you are not born one you can hardly ever become one. It is not a profession, you cannot train yourself in it. Like any other poser, I collect as much general knowledge on the subject as is possible and learn all cliches by heart. Of course, I add my own witty touches to all of them; still they are not mine.
I read, in one of those motivational books that are sold on all road-side book stalls and which, like Viagra, are consumed by the impotent in their hopes of posing as alpha males, that you can become anything in life through systematic planning and disciplined execution. Of course, I read it in my own days of impotence and had forced myself into believing them then. But when on nights like this one, I am too tired of all the make-up I let myself say and listen the truth. One can only become a laborer by will. Or a pretender. A good one, at best. And with whatever strength I may begin, pretensions are always going to tire me out eventually.
I look out of my bus window and see a beggar in his rags with the same awe with which I look at a painter, a singer, a footballer, a physicist or a story-teller.