Time...a great healer, a great teacher, a great friend...well, only if you manage to keep up with it. Now, I'm not gonna preach about how time fades away in a jiffy and you're left behind clutching the remains of what you've lost. I just wanna share what I felt this morning. It was a moment's work. I was on my terrace. It had been raining a lot for the past few days, and there was something in the air, something inspiring, something that puts a stop to your chain of worries and forces you to think, to reason out your whole life and in those few moments of bliss, everything seems like a part of a great plan, everything seems okay.

Lately there has been a lot on my mind. With only 5 days left for me to resume college, I've been trying so much to lay my hands on the best possible off-campus accommodation deal, for the past fortnight. I have no idea when I shall be alloted a room inside the campus, maybe a month, maybe two...maybe never. It's scary. Being on your own, away from home, so many expectations, your own standards to meet. You know, in the course of life, you're often made to face the greatest of your fears. Mine is 'uncertainty'. I hate not knowing what's gonna happen. Strangely, I also love the unpredictability of life and yet thats the thing I always run away from. I mean, I do realize there's no fun in reading a novel or watching a movie if you already know the end, and more often than not, ignorance is bliss! Still, we all plan, think about the future, and work towards building it in a sort of way that we want it to be. We want to know what the future holds but also want to be the ones to create it. We want it all to be pre-written by fate and yet we want to be in control of things. Maybe it's just human nature and I'm no exception.

In short, I was going crazy over the way things are and that brings me back to that special moment on the terrace. So there I stood, surrounded by that breathtaking beauty of nature, wondering where life was gonna take me, five years from now. Just then, I heard someone crying...crying hard like its the end of the world. I tried ignoring the noise and even considered moving in-doors, but curiosity got the better of me and I looked over the railing. There, I saw the source of all that wailing--a little school girl, pulling the edge of her mother's kurti and producing gallons of tears every second. Her mother looked helpless, bargaining with a vegetable seller and trying to soothe her daughter at the same time--a modern day multi-tasking mom, impressive. I shifted my gaze back to the little girl and that's when I saw it! The resemblance! She was me! I mean, she looked just like me-twelve years back from now...It was spooky!

So no doubt I had a flashback of my own past, my school days, everything reeled across my mind, everything, all the great times I had with friends, all the times I'd gotten into trouble, all the times I'd cried, just like this little girl, cried as if the world was gonna end, but each time, I realized, the world had managed to keep itself together.

There was no difference between me and that girl, I realized, we had different reasons and different ways of expressing it, but we were both complaining, complaining about our lives, something that we weren't happy about--not realizing that sooner or later, everything will work out. Time will go on and before I know it I shall be looking back and laughing at myself for ever having bothered, maybe regretting that I could've made those moments really special by spending quality time with my parents, having a hearty chat with a friend, or even doing something constructive for my own self, instead of just standing there and worrying so much.

Was it just me or had someone pressed the mute button to this world? Everything was so silent. I looked down again. The girl had stopped crying. Maybe it was time that I should too.

Smart people have come up with theories like the big-bang to explain how the universe was created, the oparin-haldane concept to explain the origin of life, but does anybody understand why a certain female leopard after having caught and killed a deer, continues to look after its new born, instead of eating it? Does anyone know why there are so many people, so many races, and yet, a whole new story to go with each face? How our paths cross, how people just enter and leave our lives? How does everything always fall into place in the end...no matter how full of hardships your life is, everything begins to make sense in your last few minutes on this earth. Who keeps a track of each of our good or bad deeds? Who makes sure that sooner or later, justice prevails? Is there anything like destiny, or is man a creator of his own fate? What is it that all the religions of the world are pointing at, but no man alive is able to catch that hint?

So many questions... The quest is on. These thoughts often visit our minds in those fleeting moments when we're at one with nature. Otherwise who has the time? We're too busy loading our pockets with money and gains in every way possible. It maybe beyond our capacity to know the mystery of life and death and the purpose of our existence, but being the sanest of all creatures, it should be our duty to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of life, and you don't have to go to a charming hill-resort for that...

Beauty exists so much in a country landscape,

as it does in the smile of an 80-year old,

or in the touch of a new born.