Hope is not a Losing Game by Amaan Khan | An essay

"Hope is not a losing game''
Amaan Khan

Yesterday, I visited a stationary shop from where I used to get my school supplies often when I was in school. To put it in perspective, I went back there after six years to get a pack of ruled sheets for my little brother. I felt a strange sense of familiarity, Even though the shop's interior had been changed, I remembered how my eyes used to wander, scanning the whole shop, yearning for new pens, supplies, and other stuff that could be afforded with a note of fifty rupees or less because that was my financial ceiling. I would wait for opportunities to just get there, now looking back I realize, how my delight drive would have been fulfilled with a mere purchase of my cherished blue gel pen.

The stationary part of my life is just one bit, there are several other pockets, which I filled back then with my curiosity, another memory I recall, the time when I saw an advertisement for martial arts classes which was somewhere in my local area, All those nights watching Chinese-Hindi dubbed Kung-Fu movies with my brother was the prime motivation that let me walk half of my town without any google maps, it took me an hour and little more to locate where martial art classes were, only to find it was closing forever. I was upset but not so much that it could ruin my remaining day, the reason was quite simple, I had myriads of ways, through which I could exist in the vastness of my life, ''couldn't enrol in Kung-Fu classes, would watch my special cartoon on television'' ''missed a Jackie Chan movie, because it premiered late at night, will play with my friends in school on Friday because there were two consecutive game period, that too right after recess''.

Several moments flashed a banner at times to my face, mockingly stating ''I did not belong here'', from not being able to get selected in my favourite sports to physically not being able to continue even after getting selected later just because I sustained injury right afterward. Still, it didn't make any difference to me because I was more hopeful when I was a kid, something which I miss now, I guess children know that it is not an obligation to stay put from where you can't move forward. So sometimes it is better to move away. I might not belong in a hundred spaces, but I thrive in a thousand tiny places born out of hope. Hope is not a prophetic tomorrow that is going to consume centuries to come and bear fruit for you, it is a sweet little swift breeze that you can feel at will, you don't need anything that isn't in you, to belong or feel good, feel now and you will always belong, with you, because ways to settle where you feel more life is not mysterious but as simple as visiting a familiar place that you used to visit often when you was a child to re-watching your childhood beloved movie.

Amaan Khan, aged 22, is a resident of New Delhi. Holding an MA in History, Posses passion for writing, especially poetry.