The beginning

He was too scared to look into the mirror. The venomous residues of a previous incursion still lingered. Every ounce of determination and all the pragmatic, physical goading that a 22 year old could cough up, proved to be futile. Even as this tussle squeezed the daylight out of his eyes, “And to what avail?” cried the mind. “Why do you want to put me through that again?” He did not know. Another thing on the list of the numerous don’t - knows that seemed to have engulfed his life. All the same, the questions kept popping up. Questions that could not be dismissed, ones that did not have an answer scripted yet, the ones that would unfold themselves for all the world to see; in the future that was to be his and everyone like him. There were lots of him, surrounded by the ubiquitous uncertainties that one single nation had nurtured, only to father a vengeful, prodigal son. One among the multitude of desis who had jumped the Atlantic in search of knowledge and money, at this point he felt lacking in one and bereft of the other.