Powerless?

A foreign worker stands amidst the clutter in the back room of an eatery, one of many that line the bustling side streets of little India. I spy into the small rectangle of light, framed by the night - his world. With a hand on his hip and a blank gaze on his face, he doesn’t see me, the voyeur, peering into his little world, a world boxed in by the darkness. Day after day, night after night, waiting on tables, serving customers, washing dishes, mopping up spillages, keeping the kitchen clean. Work. Neverending. Is the future as bleak as this tiny light, to be swallowed up by darkness? Can he improve his lot in life? Can we? Are we ever in control? Or do we have to keep playing the hand that life deals us?

We stand amidst the clutter of life. Sometimes it seems as if we are the voyeur, peering through another person’s eyes at our own lives, and we see that what we’ve been keeping busy with is insignificant and hopeless, hopeless to realize the dreams that we held on to – dreams long abandoned. And we feel powerless to change our fate.

Powerless.