The Great Pretender

"ज़िन्दगी के सफ़र में गुज़र जाते हैं जो मकाम

वो फिर नहीं आते, वो फिर नहीं आते"

- Anand Bakshi (Aap ki Kasam 1974)

It's only ten minutes before I turn 18,

I thought tonight would be different than usual,

It is actually,

A few stars are missing,

The sky is a dim.

A journey where someone was carrying me for 18 years,

And today I'm on my two feet,

Asking people for directions,

They're pointing everywhere,

How are they living their life when they themselves don't know where their harbor is?

Am I another lost soul in a sea of spirits?

We are all travellers,

Looking up at the sky,

Imagining that someone is waiting for us,

And hence we keep moving on.

We keep on changing our  journeys,

Maybe that has made us dull,

We never know when to stop,

And even if we do, we don't know for how long.

This juncture,

It is the end of a beginning,

And the beginning of an end.

Now I have nowhere to go to,

I shall be a nomad for the rest of my life,

I will sail away from my home,

From a place where I found peace,

I will pretend to have found my purpose,

Wherein reality I'll be sailing through a haze of delusions,

Delusions that will blind my eyes but will sing to my ears,

"You have reached your destination,

Just sail for a few more moments."

This is what life has become.

We'll be known as The Great Pretenders,

Because no matter how shattered we are,

Our pieces will never reflect our true emotions.