How are you?

How often has it happened to you that some colleague or a classmate whizzed past you with the words “How are you?”. May be you do it every day. Is it a courtesy or a social obligation that has become a habit? Did you wait for your victim to respond? Or you really expected him to start howling his miseries to you in that chance meeting in the elevator or corridor or near the coffee vending machine? I don’t think so. What if one day, one of them decides to answer your question?

That brings us to the other party. What you say when someone asks you the question in question? "I'm fine" and almost like a counter move, "how are you?" It is an innocent lie we say every morning and mostly out of habit and less to hide the truth. Of course one can be fine with unpaid credit card bills, EMI’s that deem unnecessary since you don’t even want that car anymore, your monthly targets that you know your boss never achieved, your birthday that once meant heavy partying on your parents money and celebrating the moment but now results in deep scars in your budget and psyche as you can’t drink those copious amounts and stand in the next morning’s meeting with the client without embarrassing everybody in the room. And after every crisis of your life has crossed your mind in that split second after that colleague walked passed you, you say “I am fine” like he really cared to listen to your sad tale.

Even better, many of us, for some strange reason, have taken up “I am good” as an alternative to “I am fine”. Alright, so first of all no one really asked you whether you are good or a distant relative of the Lucifer.  Secondly, how can you just assume that you are good? May be you are the only one in his life that stands between him and his happiness. And if anyway you are on a self praising sprees, why stop at good- go a little further and tell them that you are awesome, above them all or something as straightforward as “I’m the Architect.”

The Architect from The Matrix Returns and Revolution

Well in spite of the respondent’s unnecessary lie or the self patting, the real culprit remains the one who started it all. They deserve a treat of their own making. So the next time they put forth these innocent sounding words to you, surprise them with "I am all dead inside I mean if you really care- I stand here because my 34th attempt to set my house ablaze was an utter failure just like me. Now I have to pay my neighbour because the fire destroyed his entire collection of Turkish rugs. Oh don't feel sad. These sad state of affairs will end  soon when I take this building with me after this little chat with you. By the way how was your weekend?"

Or something on those lines...