Crunchy sidewalks of life

Have you ever felt the satisfaction of crushing a leaf beneath your shoe?

Every morning I crunch on the sidewalk from station to office, going out of my way to attack every dry leaf with my feet.

No, don’t judge me. I know you guys have done it at least once. No? Not even when no one is looking?

The other day while strolling around my office block with a friend, we got into this life-changing conversation about the aforementioned crunchy leaves.

How fake are some leaves, we concluded, they look so temptingly crunchy but are softer than sponge when we step on them.

‘Disappointing,’ we agreed, nodding our heads seriously.

These leaves teach us an important lesson of life- ‘Don’t judge a leaf by the way it looks.’ It’s your character that matters, not your face.

Just like people.

Innocent leaves which are really crunchy but don’t look so tempting remain un-crunched because we run behind the ones that ‘look’ crunchy.

Just like life.

Crunchy leaves make us feel powerful as the puny things wither beneath our feet. They show us that no obstacle is uncrushable

What more motivation do you want to get things done?

At the risk of sounding incredibly lame, I’d like to ask, what if these leaves are parallels to hopelessness? They are done with living and dreaming, no more can they make oxygen for the earth, and with no more hope left in them, they lie around waiting for someone to crush them and get them out of their way.

See what lack of dreams can do to you? Tch tch!

So go and dream and live a bit. Crush those leaves and make some noise. Be happier and stop wondering how some dead leaves suddenly turned philosophical on you.

And stop looking for slippers to throw at me, you’ll need them for crunching on the sidewalk.

Photography- Arghya Biswas

Photography- Arghya Biswas