Did anybody tell you dreams die here?

I spotted this young man on a footpath this morning. I wonder what made him so sad. I wanted to reach out to him, but all I did was clicked a picture from a red BEST bus.

***

If it’s about what you dream of, does it matter where you dream? How many more will you ensconce, how many more dreams will you nurture, before you shatter them into fragments. Tiny splinters that cut into naked feet and leave bloody footprints.

The city of dreams they call you, is this all you have to offer, mother? Just this much and yet so much. A sheet too small to stretch his legs on, belongings so meagre he can carry them along, and yet a sound sleep, where he can escape into whichever reality he wishes to. Reality is where you wish to be. What are you in your reality, old man? Are you a king with bright eyed daughters, are you a suited businessman in a car with tinted glass, or are you back home, to the place where you once belonged.

Sleep well now old man, for when you wake up, reality may be harsh.

***

And what dreams lie beneath those bright eyes? And how much time until the smile fades, and the eyes darken? How much time until we realise the most joyous moment for a city is not the innaugration of a flyover, or the rush of a faster train? How much time until we realise that the person selling balloons to children at traffic signals is a child too?

***

These pictures have been clicked at different times between January and June. Maybe I shouldn’t have clicked these pictures at all, or should not have put them up without asking the people in the pictures about it. Maybe.