Roorkee summer and the endsems – it doesn’t get any better than this! I am either sweating under the blazing sun or after a glimpse at the course syllabi. The room offers no respite from the heat either, and soon lecture halls and library seem so much more inviting for all the wrong reasons. Trudging along the dreary road back to Azad one such day, I find a rick-puller under the shade of a tree, swiping off the sweat from his face. Remnants of his youth still lingered there somewhere, but flecks of white peppered across his head were in stark contrast – a witness to the grim struggle that was his life. I wonder, for the rest of my way back, about life – with all its unfairness and ironies, and despair and regrets; and yet the innate sense of hope within it and the joy of living. I wonder what secrets my future conceals….