Title: "The Weight Behind ‘how's It Going? '" Poem by ashok jadhav

(A lone figure stands under a dim streetlamp, rain slicking the pavement. They speak with a mix of frustration, longing, and a subtle vulnerability.)
"How's it going? "
*Ah, those three simple words… How deceptively light they feel on the tongue! How innocuous they seem, tossed casually between strangers, friends, even lovers. ‘How's it going? ' - as if the world could be summed up in such a fleeting syllable dance.
I've asked it… I've answered it… a thousand times. And yet, I wonder… who truly listens? Who wants to hear the trembling of a soul, the cracks in a heart, the silent screams behind the forced smile?
Every time someone asks me, I see it—the glance that darts away, the clock ticking impatiently in their eyes. They want the answer neat, tidy, digestible: ‘Fine.' ‘Good.' ‘Can't complain.' But I… I am oceans in a teacup. I am storms masked by sunlight. I am a thousand little catastrophes stitched into the seams of a single weary day.
And still, we ask each other, don't we? ‘How's it going? ' We cling to these words, hoping, perhaps, that someone… anyone… will care enough to listen beyond the surface. Maybe it's the bravest question we can ask, and the most dangerous one. Because if the answer comes… truly comes… we might drown in the truth of another's life.
So, I ask you… How's it going? Not as a pleasantry, not as a reflex. I ask as a witness, as a seeker, as a soul desperate to know the world beating in the chest of the one standing before me.
(Pauses, looks away, voice softens.)
And maybe, just maybe… if we listen long enough… really listen… we can stop pretending, stop hiding. Maybe then, ‘How's it going? ' can carry the weight it was meant to.
(They let the silence answer for a while, rain falling like hesitant applause.)