Dreams and hopes

she had been thinking of fishing for a while. But something discouraged her. Her sixth sense? May be. Or thought 'loag kya kahain gein'. Regardless, she didn't go. Her friends had been nagging her to go.

One early morning, she woke up. Feeling all positive, she decided to go fishing. But there was a problem. It was the end of fishing season, and all fish had been caught. Tourists from all over had emptied out the lake last week. Did that discourage her? No, she decided to go anyways.

She got there. Patiently setup the bait at the end of the finishing-rod, and she waited. She knew there were no fish. "What am I doing here?", she asked herself repeatedly. But she didn't leave. She waited to feel a pull on her fishing-rod. Was it hope that made her wait? Her heart agreed, but the mind disagreed. The mind told her, she was being too optimistic. The heart dreamed of catching a fish, and cooking it out in the open, the old-fashioned way - (connecting with the nature) and eating it alone - in peace. But the reality was there weren't any fish. Her hopes couldn't change the reality, or could it? How could the sense of reality not wake her up? Did she prefer to live in her bubble of hope? Was she deceiving herself into what they call positive thinking. If she had so firmly believed that this was a waste of time, why was she there?

What happened next was something she'd remember for the rest of her life. So while she waited with almost no hopes of catching any fish, she felt it. She said to herself, that can't be it. It was just too good to be true. She quickly started reeling her fishing-rod - too scared to believe. What if it wasn't a fish. Would she be hurt? Would it hurt so much that she'd never fish again? It slowly appeared out of the water. it was really a fish - not just a small one, this one was big. Bigger than any she'd ever caught. She still couldn't believe it. She had come there with lil' to no hopes - but the fact that she had come shows she did dream.

She met with me, the very next day. She was too excited to wait - couldn't wait to share with me. Even before we were seated comfortably, she started narrating the incidents. I didn't say anything all along. She got to the end, and paused, as though waiting for me to comment, to summarize and conclude. I looked at her face, there was innocence written all over it. Her eyes wide open with happiness, and lips, curved into a smile, or more like a grin. The smile almost seemed like it was embedded in, and that nothing in the world could make her frown again. I was happy for her -really happy. I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to hug her out of happiness. But my body didn't seem to move, and my lips didn't find the words. She understood. She knew how happy I was. Somethings are better left unsaid. Some words are better left unspoken.

There was a silence for a minute or two - I knew she was thinking hard. I could tell by the way she stared in the open - at nothing in particular. Then she spoke, slowly, as though measuring every syllable: "sometimes we shoot in the dark - knowing it won't hit the mark, but somewhere deep down, we hope - on the small chance - it might.
Every time it misses the mark, we are lil' disappointed, forgetting that we never expected it to hit the mark in the first place. And when it does hit the mark, we are surprised, forgetting that we had hoped it to."
"it's like balancing between hope and fear?", I asked
She smiled.