I feel like Forrest Gump sometimes…….

…when I stop at a traffic-signal sometimes and I see those malnourished girls aged 3-12, begging, being shooed by every motorist. And badly wanting to improve their plight, but all I do is thrust in their hands, the toffee that I find in my pocket.

… when I go to the meeting after lunch, having relished chicken kababs, a nice, juicy sliver of which, is stuck between my buck teeth and I wonder why everyone’s got a ‘I’m –gonna-get sick-any-moment’ look on their face once I start talking.

… when I saw my one-time best friend get in the front of the mike at the elocution competition, holding my speech in hand, when in fact I was the one chosen by a forum of teachers and students to represent my class.

… when people just refuse to see the wise, matured-beyond-the-years me that is held captive in a body of a teenager.

… when I’m lying sick in the hospital, not knowing whether I will survive the next 48 hrs and I hear that a healthy, young person ended her life because she was wasn’t well-prepared for her 12th Std. exams.

… when I look at someone who’s made it to the IAS and wonder if I threw away my true calling by chucking my IAS dream at 21—a dream that I had nourished since the age of 7.

… when I look back at my school-days, when so many girls treated me as more than a confidante and wonder why I never considered them as best friend material, and why on earth I had that blinkered attitude when it came to friendships.

…. When I look at my school and college mates now, all happy, some settled in their dream jobs, some married and some even with twin babies, if I ever have it in my destiny to enjoy the same.

Yes, there will be many more times when I will feel just like Gump. I hope that the little good that I have ever done in my life, knowingly or unknowingly, will pay off in the end, just as it did for Gump-myHero.