Identity Card- Part 1

Today, I have reappeared in my city after spending many years in a jail. Things have changed a lot here. I guess no one remembers me here. Just out of curiosity, I smiled and waved my hand arbitrarily to a barber. “Nice to see you after a week Sir…How is your father?” It was so irritating and annoying for me that I moved without replying him back.

I walked from the barber shop to a place exactly in front of a splendid mall. It never existed, when I visited the place last time. I had merely 500 bucks in my wallet and a cell phone which hardly had the balance to manage a call for half an hour. I was never a shy man and have been winning challenges for the last many years to prove my balls. So, I geared up to get into that opulent mall. At any point of time and with any sum of money in my wallet, I wouldn’t have hesitated to enter the mall. But, I wished to chill my self having a quick fag before getting any royal reception inside the mall.

It was a long queue of strange faces with cigarettes in their hands. Probably, few of them were smoking because they had to prove that they are social animal and they socialize every evening and few of them were smoking under the wrong impression of looking elegant while performing the ritual. It have always been a great mystery to me that “Why do we try to impress strangers”. Surprisingly the media chosen to prove us are absurd at times. A hell lot of blabbering discussions forced me to leave the place as soon as possible. I dragged my self closer to the mall with the cigarette in my hand.

Memories were flashing in my mind. I still remember my father. He was a principal at a blind school in the city. He was a very qualified scholar from a prestigious college. But, I never understood why he was so much inclined him the social service. Obnoxiously, while I was very young he wrenched me also to serve the school. It was much more than any punishment.

I was never excited interacting those blinds. They were never any factor of delight. But, the banner of my benevolent father made every one of them interact with me. They used to share their feelings, their possessions and their memories with me. Hardly, any of such emotions conciliated my anger. ‘D’ was also among those blind students. He is not much relevant in my diary except the fact that he had a nice I-pod which always enticed me. I was an egoistic child and rarely asked him the I-pod. I asked my father to gift a similar I-pod on my birthday, but in reply had to face severe scolding and lectures of frugality. I was very possessive since my childhood and had hardly compromised for my demands. After the death of my mother things changed a lot. But, this time the matter got serious. Late in the night, when all of the students went to their bed, I decided to snatch the I-pod from the blind without making any noise or give him any clue. His bad stars couldn’t help him to save either his life or his I-pod. I was caught snatching the I-pod .In my defense I attacked him. Unfortunately he stumbled and died on the spot. My moral father had nothing but few more moral lessons for the jail. It was probably his society and his social image that made him at least to shed tears at that moment.

My first trysts with those prisoners are not too great or enthralling to boastfully discuss anywhere, but I have always conversed different versions of that story at different places. It satisfies my ego and the appreciations make my nose look further up.

Things at the jail changed over the years. I was not new to those ragging phases. I never felt bruised. My father even treated me like that. Surely, I enjoyed being discussed and glorified among the prisoners. They often idolized me. It served their purpose of being praised as connoisseur of recognizing talents and my purpose of turning into an icon. My days of misery were over. I was greeted as a don there, had all the facilities available behind the bars. I used to demonstrate and rule the prisoners.

But, I hated the place. I hated the inmates. I was dying like anything to get out of that quicksand. I had to see the world. I had to learn life. I had to eat in restaurants….I had to hear the I-pod.