When your world comes crashing down.

Exquisite is the feeling of pain. Warm blankets, cold skin. Clammy hands, throbbing temple. Pounding headache. Like iron fingers that have your brain in a vice like grip, the poor slimy grey cells squeezed out,pus sliding all over.

And as you sit in the car, watch the buildings, beggars and the buses glide over another in a incomprehensible haze. And then he catches ur attention. The beggar. In the carcasses of the rich man's throw-away's.. The jeans out of fashion, the sandwich that dint suit the taste buds, the books that have served their time of the year.. He sits there. Dead eyes, dead skin. And you suddenly understand. Pain. You passed him everyday, he was always a part of the scenery. Now he stands, the most definite silhouette in the bustling landscape. In your eyes, the opulence of the malls fade, the liquid of the mercedes dries, the food gets slung with cobwebs...and only he remains distinct and decorated. From being an ant, he en gorges to be a giant- the broken epitome of injustice. In his soul-less eyes, You understand the unfairness of life-of not being given a chance. You - your back against the plush brown leather and he-his back against the cold, cruel stone of the flyover.. You both feel the same. Pain. You in your coiffed hair and the little gold smiling pretty on your earlobes.. He in his matted tresses and the ornamental markings of scabies and rashes.. Both of you , impaled with the same feeling. Pain.

Once upon a time when there was a smile on your lips and a happy song doing the tango inside your ears , did you once stop to think about him? Did you once stop to understand ? All you did was scorn. Or maybe shy. Or run past, eyes averted, mitten ed hands covering up that oh-so dainty nose. All he was a leper and stinking with the foul smell of the netherlands.

Happiness liberates you. Pain humbles you. You can be born in a room dressed in satin and chandeliers but all it takes is one feeling to become one of the lesser mortals. You no longer see the brown skin that is peeling away and the gangrene riddled foot.. You see what could have been eyes of the hopeful. You no longer see lice infested hair and the goitre neck, you see the heartbreaking way he still tries to make his living by singing songs decorated with glories for the Lord. A rat nibbles on his black, hardened ankles but all you see is that pathetic mongrel with its sticky thin legs and flea infested tail sharing that torn, paan speckled, blanket with him.

No one teaches humility better than pain and the poor.

Bear pain. Learn humility.

For if you don't you will learn it the hard way.

That Written Off's become Kings. The prized and the precious become would have been's.