Starry Night

Innumerable writers have espoused the idea that the best way to forget your problems, is to lay on the grass under the starry night sky and just stare. Stare at the twinkle-dotted expanse of nothingness till you slowly begin to realise the magnitude of the universe that you live in, and the sheer insignificance of all that ails you. The pain of your problems seems to pale in comparison to the night sky. 

I, of course, live in Mumbai. A city where a patch of grass clean enough to lay on and an unadulterated view of the night sky are rare commodities. So I have to make do with heart-reacting relatable posts on Instagram and Facebook. You know, the ones that say 'I wish I could just shut off my phone, drive to the beach, forget everything, and just listen to the sound of waves crashing.' Which is also pretty much impossible in Mumbai because every beach is downright cacophonous. 

But these things happen when you least expect them to. On a very rainy Saturday morning, I happened to look up from my phone and out of the train window. This again is rare; you'll never see anybody looking out of the window on a local train. Everybody is glued to their phone screens. When I happened to peek out the window, I saw a swarm of people on the platform. It was platform no. 5 of the Andheri station. There were so many people on the platform that I couldn't even see the grey of the stone under them. All of them had their heads turned in the direction the train would come in from. As we moved away from the platform, I tried to estimate how many people were waiting for the train. 500 was my educated guess, give or take a 100. 500 people, crammed onto one platform, waiting to be crammed into a train that definitely didn't have the space to accommodate all of them. 500 people from wildly different backgrounds, on their way to do wildly different things, living wildly different lives. 500 people, with at least 2 problems each. 2 problems per person in Mumbai is a very conservative estimate. So a 1000 problems just on that one platform. At least 900 of those were sure to be more pertinent, more painful, than mine. I looked at those people again. They were all so engrossed in waiting for the train.  

That's when I felt it. My problems seemed to pale in comparison to the expectant faces I saw on that platform, waiting for the 9:12 am Churchgate slow. 

About 2 crore people live in Mumbai. 4 crore problems. 90% of them sure to be worse than mine. 

This isn't to say that I shouldn't be sad about my life, just because I have it better than most people around me. There will always be someone who has it worse than you. Doesn't mean you can't be sad or can't complain. 

But sometimes, you need a little bit of perspective, a bit of a focus shift. Shifting your focus from yourself to the people around you, to realise that this isn't the end. My problems won't disappear overnight, but I'll live through the night. And I'll go to work tomorrow again, and take the train again, just like the 500 people I saw on that platform. My problems aren't bigger than the city around me. The magnitude of the universe I live in is so many orders larger than what ails me. And that is exactly why I know I'll get through it, one day at a time. And so will you.