Hungry Eyes

Did I listen to the song?

Yes. Yes, I did. But you probably realize this is not about a woman discovering her love for dancing or another romantic trope. Why did I come upon this phrase? There is a very literal reason for it.

I moved to this city and almost immediately lock-downs gripped the world. For someone who loves to travel, this is a huge blow and I could sense that over time a lot of people gave in to despair. Extended isolation, negatively impact all our state of minds. It is a beautiful day as I am writing this, and I am not going to follow melancholy down that rabbit hole; but you get the picture.

Nevertheless, I am a survivor. I bide my time, when the situation is unfavorable, throwing myself into work and extra curricular things, so that by the end of the day, I have little to no time to think about how bad the scene around me is. This may not be the best strategy, but it has served me well for all my heartbreaks.

Pretty soon, I forget what life is supposed to look like because I simply have no time. Yeah, I am THAT kind of a person. Hold up your judgement though for the end of the post. Coming back to the discussion at hand, I was remiss to notice that it had been six months in this city, and I had not only failed to go anywhere, do anything, make any friends, I did not know where anything was. This wouldn't be so bad, until my laptop broke down and my window to the world, hung on its hinges.

Now, I am a software engineer and I know my way around troubleshooting and I am a cheap-ass person, but this was beyond my capabilities. It needed to go to the service center.

Travelling! In times of CoVid! Preposterous!

I tinkered with the dodgy laptop for a month before it finally irked me enough to book an Uber. I thought nothing of it because pfft, I had taken boring cab rides numerous times before. It is just one long view outside the window, but we all know, we are much rather on our phones the entire time. I dusted my laptop bag and gathered the usual components. My cab was waiting.

Let me tell you, never in my life have my eyes felt so STARVED. I was readying my playlist on the phone, forgetting that I had not had a glimpse of life outside my own room for the past six months. It all changed when the cab left my building premises. I WAS IN AWE. Not because this city is particularly inspiring, but because-

Look! Green leaves. Look at the creeper climbing the wall. Oh my God, a cat!

Everything, and I mean everything was suddenly so interesting. I wanted to take it all in- the flowers, the grass, the clump of dust at the side of a construction site. All the things that I had earlier tossed aside as mundane were the belle of the ball. Man, who knew the over-bridge was so fetching.

You know when you are in a class with only 3 people of the opposite sex, your options of having a crush are pretty much limited. And even then, any time with them is the best time ever, because where else are you going to go?

The flora, the buildings, the sunset, the breeze, believe it or not, reminded me of European summers. That is the kind of desert I had harbored in my eyes. I was so disillusioned, but it was a happy one. Like most white lies are.

So, if someone asks your opinion on a piece of cloth, DON'T tell them, they look fat. Some denials are necessary for survival.

I am going to go listen to that song again.