Through the smoke..

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide

At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world
                                         High hopes (Pink Floyd)

We were boozing, we were high and of course we were rejoicing the end of yet another year in our quest to become engineers. Tumult now started to accompany the smoke from the burning sticks of nicotine as the highs and lows of the year gone by was rewound to the last detail. This happens every time people like us sit down to have booze but I would like to brag, our group’s a bit special. We almost try to visualize the whole world from those dizzy heights. There’s always the politics, the economics, literature, sciences, social issues, careers and almost everything else under the sun(all this apart from the usual girlfriend, love, best friend, die for you friends blab la….). All this interspersed by brief moments of silence during which the realizations take shape.
About two hours in to the session, tired from the nonstop blabbering, by then the moments of silence had overgrown the tumultuous periods. As we lay on a double bed forcible pushed in to the small room to accommodate all of us, the silence this time around was broken by a murmur. A kid from the hostel dinning room had come asking for empty bottles of soft drinks. “No bottles in my room” said the voice of the owner of the makeshift pub, then a very brief silence and then a question “why is it that kids are forced to clean up our dinning tables?” , “can’t we be doing something?” “can’t we stop wasting money like this and may be help them out?” (I still hate myself for that). What followed, I ain’t got the vocabulary to describe that, but all I can say is, it lead to the longest debate I have ever been in.
The friend explained a number of things we could do for them, someone even gave us the calculations. You may call me a pessimist or even an evil soul (even I have questioned myself) but I did ask “What would the kid’s family do? Most probably they survive on whatever he earns!” “What can we do about his brother who probably gets his daily bread because this guy is leading a life of misery?”  
Plagued with these we continued to fight on what we can do. Reasoned and unreasoned for hours that followed and finally our exhausted brains reached a consensus (a soul or two still disagreed) on the point that we were probably not in the right stage to help out and we can do it may be a couple of years later when we were settled. 
From those dizzy heights we had seen our dreamed of world with our eyes wide open. The only thing that disturbs me now is the fear of sleepwalking back on this dream. Hope we will someday, in the near future, when we are more capable, work for its realization. I have for ever believed in my self, hope this wont be the reason I will regret that fact. 

(My sincere apologies to every soul in there with me that afternoon for not being able to put this as all of you would have liked.)