Hope

Hope

‘Don’t lose hope buddy,’ my friend says. ‘Things will fall in place somehow! Just hope for the best!’

‘Damn right, I should,’ I retort back as I cut the call and ask the Uber guy to switch on the air conditioning – oh, sometimes you have to ask for it, believe me. When you’re an adult male in your mid - twenties and still unsure of how it all will turn out to be eventually, hope isn’t really any help. Or even if you’re anybody struggling with your daily life and fair share of uncertainties and emotions – which each one of us, somehow is – things like hope, just don’t matter.

I try to keep calm, and the taxi zips through the city as we pass by a billboard sign for an election campaign with Mr. Rahul Gandhi as the poster boy. And suddenly I’m enlightened by his genuine insights on how our country functions at one of his recent speeches. What good times to live in indeed! All hail Dynasty! All hail nepotism! (No Kangana ma’am these aren’t my thoughts, I just don’t have anything better to shout out for.) Think of all those examples in Mr Gandhi’s speech. If these people can sustain themselves, so can we! A little hope. And if Mr Gandhi being the honest politician that he is –apparently, it’s hard to be an honest politician in this country though – can go on to lead the single largest opposition party someday – oh believe me, he will – there is definitely a hope for all of us. Though, is honesty a measure of one’s sanity? Who knows?

But wait! Do you belong to any dynasty in any case? Mind you, that counting generations of tax paying engineers, doctors or professionals as your ticket to a successful dynasty is as good as hoping to get through an interview without answering, the ‘Why should we hire you?’ Good luck with that, and there goes the little hope too.

You’re probably single and are worried about being so forever and definitely, hope isn’t the best thing to answer your uncertainties. But then you see the cute quarrels of the GOI and SBI/RBI on every single day from demonetization to GDP and you believe in love all again. After all, somebody’s SBI/RBI somewhere is waiting to quarrel with your GOI, just like the happy couple that you’ll be. Hope.

Or, you might feel cheated or maybe betrayed too and you might feel devastated for something your beloved did to you. But you’ll never feel as cheated as Mr Jayant Sinha  would have, on being questioned of his competency by his own father. Ouch! That must have hurt. You might feel disturbed by the reckless behaviour of your child towards you and no hope seems to do any good then. Talk about the modern children hurting their parents! But could you be as hurt as the USA whom, our darling neighbour Pakistan now glares in the eyes openly, on daily basis?? Ouch!! No you can’t! So zip it up and smile! A little more hope.

And just when I’m ruminating on the spectacles of hope, my phone flashes with a news alert on another of the continuing little brawl between Mr President and the supreme leader or as Mr Trump would call him – little rocket man! How adorable these two are, aren’t they? Now imagine them running their respective superpowers and nuclear WMDs and you know there’s still a chance for the decent you. If they can do it, you can too. Let’s make our lives great again! So much hope.

By the way, with no relation to the continuing topic here, here’s a fun fact: the most peaceful person behind the spectacle that 26/11 was for India, is soon to launch his own political party and contest elections in our neighbouring nation. Ah well now, if that can happen, anything is possible, what say? Hope. Hope. Hope. I’m lovin’ it!

And anyhow if it all fails – your career aspirations, your financials, your dreams and everything – you can always go on to embrace Sandlewood shawls and preach the wisdom of life to millions of frustrated individuals like yourself. I hear it’s a viable business model these days. After all a little generic advice with a spiritual touch is always welcome. Hari Om!

With these musings I remember my last night’s unfinished ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. So I plug in my earphones and click ‘Resume’ on the video player and there, in one of the most memorable movie scenes ever, Tim Robbins enters in a terrific voice-over to his letter in Morgan Freeman’s hands,

‘…remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies…’

Indeed.

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