Garbage from the Weekend

I emptied my bedroom dustbin into the black garbage bag, ready to throw it down the chute. I had one last cigarette left in the packet and fifteen minutes to spare before I could start for the office. Giving in to the temptation, I lit the cigarette and threw the packet into the bag as well, my last piece of garbage from the weekend.

I don’t know if it was the cigarette or my twisted mind that lead me to start reliving the long weekend, each piece of garbage at a time. “Is this all that is left of my life”, I thought, “a black garbage bag on a Monday morning, ready to be trashed again over the coming week?” The bag more or less represented my whole life, or the lack of it.

There were three envelopes that once carried the manuscripts of a book that I had sent to different publishers. All returned unopened, marked “return to sender” with a lousy sorry note attached which conveyed a tired, mocking “Yeah rrrright!”

There was a credit card receipt for fifteen hundred bucks that I pissed off at a pub on the Friday night with people, half of whom I didn’t even know and the remaining half, I wish I didn’t know. Still I went to spend the Friday night with them just for the want of human company and to feel alive. Staying alone gives me an overdose of privacy which I need to shake off every now and then. With no real friends around, beggars can’t be choosers; you go with whomever is ready to go with you.

Hiding under it was a movie ticket stub for The Hangover. While it was by far the funniest movie I saw in a very long time, I wished the whole time that there was someone beside me in that theatre with whom I could share my laughter. There are a bunch of people I could have gone to the movie with, but there wasn’t even one in that bunch whom I wanted to be with me. So even though it was a funny movie to watch on a Saturday afternoon, it was quite depressing getting out and knowing that it was Saturday and I had nowhere to go but home. So I decided to burn some fuel pointlessly and roam around the city of Hyderabad. Those oil reserves ain’t drying up for another half a century and I have bigger things to worry about. I went around the city, and realised even though it boasts of a rich history, there isn’t much in the city except malls. Malls of all shapes and sizes, big, small, cheap, costly but mostly pretentious.

Joining hands with the ticket stub was another credit card receipt for two thousand bucks, which I blew away on a pair of sneakers that I didn’t even want, if I must be honest. I bought it while I was browsing through one of the malls. God knows my credit was touching an all time high and the market did not look good enough to expect any kind of raise. These plastics are getting to me. No matter what I do to keep them inside my wallet, they keep coming back with a vengeance and accumulating charges bigger than the last time.

“Is this all that is left of my life”, I thought, “a black garbage bag on a Monday morning, ready to be trashed?” Credit card bills, lame trips to malls, lousy weekend get togethers and loneliness, is this all that I have accomplished over all these years?”

Rolled up in a paper ball was an airplane ticket of the round trip that I took to Calcutta on Sunday. My maternal grandmother had passed away and my mom was insistent that I show up personally to pay my respects. I never enjoyed these family gatherings, happy or sad; they were always full of gossips and hypocrites. I bid my farewell to granny and was sitting in a corner waiting for a couple of hours to pass so that I could be on my flight back home. My mother came and joined me, and even in that difficult time she managed to put on a smile for me which oozed love, affection and a genuine concern. We just sat there talking about nothing and everything for the next two hours, and even though she never asked, I don’t know how, but she knew exactly what was going on in my life. It is kinda spooky the way she always reads me. Just before leaving she gave me a hug and said, “I love you son, please come and visit us in the near future.” I felt a warm feeling envelop me and in my mother’s love I found the reason for my life.

I never understood how in the western culture moms become a thing of the past once you move out. For me, my mom will always be there. That one hug, drove away all my loneliness, made me feel wanted more than ever before, and probably gave me the will to keep up the fight. I know that when I make it big, she will be there to share it with me. Girlfriends may come and go but my mom is the constant in my equation.

I ashed my cigarette butt before taking one last drag and flicking it out of the window. I sealed the bag. I watched as down in went, through the chute, taking all my miseries with it. It was a new week, and I had bills to pay and expectations to meet… so off I went to work.