I was riding home in an auto, on a warm, humid mid-monsoon afternoon, mulling over the many issues of my life that boring history assignment due tomorrow, the fight with my mom- when we jerked to a stop at a signal, and I abruptly caught a look at the auto driver in the mirror. I saw him properly for the first time. His crinkled eyes were scrunched- up or had his tiresome livelihood to ensure his wards a better life rendered those worry lines permanent. Or maybe he was a routine drinker, despite his meager income. Oh, many possibilities. Suddenly charged with such thoughts, I looked out, to my left the man on his bike waiting for the signal, with sweating brow and huge backpack, a software engineer, perhaps, late to work. Or a sales manager, walking door to door marketing dictionaries and encyclopedias which he and his clients both know they have no use for. The couple on my other side, happily joking and smirking. Married? Yes. A baby on the way perhaps the reason for their joy. Or a recent patch-up from the many silly fights most couples are wont to have. The metro-rail workers on the other side of the road, scrawny and dirty, toiling for something they know they can never afford to use, far from their homeland up north, leaving behind wives or ailing mothers and unmarried sisters, hoping to provide for them all. The young boy, looking far younger than his probable age, picking for bottles and cans in the garbage flowing from the under-sized containers, to take them to the local recyclers. Thinking of the sensible deed to mother earth that he was enabling? No. Thoughts focused only on the meager coins he'll get in return, to feed his empty, panged stomach for the day. Maybe he was orphaned, or left behind the product of an illicit affair. Or kidnapped and used by local thugs. No one knows, nor seems to care. Just like nobody notices, sees, the abundance of stories embodied in the people around us. Hasn't it always been like that? My own woe the only ones worth feeling- my own life the only matter of significance. That of others remains insignificant, just like mine seems to them. Insignificant. The signal turns green. The driver revs up the accelerator. I turn my thoughts back to that history assignment. 