Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “opt.” Use it as a word or find a word with “opt” in it and base your post on that. Have fun!
Life is filled with options . We have to choose. Some decisions are made consciously and others , we are not even aware that we are making decisions. We just act. At that moment we believe our decision to be the right one. It is only much later that we come to know whether they were right or not. Many a time we are given a second chance but some times we have to deal with what we have opted for. I believe we have only two options when life deals us a problem, either run away or face it. For me, running away is not at all an option and when there is no choice it is better to deal with problem positively. Life becomes easier.
Writing about options, I remember this incident which happened in 1965. My mother recalled with a smile the scene very vividly, even after decades. That year my parents decided to go to Darjeeling for a holiday with their two small children. My father was posted in Calcutta.
In those days there was no railway bridge across the river Ganga. When the river enters Bengal, it splits into two, the Hugli and the Padma. Just before the breakup, a barrage was constructed- Farakka barrage. The train stopped to the south of the barrage and the passengers crossed the river in a steamer and then boarded a meter gauge train on the other side. That day they reached the place quite late in the evening.
Those were the days of trunks and holdalls, no suitcases 😊. The porter was rushing ahead with the luggage and my father rushed after him. My mother followed with two of us. At one place, some people went to one side and others to another. My father was nowhere to be seen! There were two steamers by the bank. My mother was faced with two options, either to follow the ladies who been in their compartment or walk on. She opted to walk behind them and climbed up the waiting steamer.
To her dismay my father was not to be seen, she immediately climbed down. And there was my father coming towards them with an anxious face. The porter had not slowed down and he was worried about the luggage. Reaching the correct steamer my father turned around thinking his wife and children were behind him. Not seeing them he rushed back the way he had come and soon saw them. That was a happy reunion 😊.
The steamer on which my mother had gone left soon.
An exciting start to a trip 😊.
