Posted on by Anamika

The delight of delay

Pic credit: Shutterstock

Ever sipped a cup of tea slower than usual because the conversation over it turned very interesting and you wanted it to last longer ? Or perhaps walked down a lane that takes you barely 5 mins to cross on normal days, for 15 or say 20 mins because you were accompanied by your favourite person.

It’s not exaggeration if I say that– “In this fast moving world”- can be used as the opening phrase for most of the content nowadays as it is short, relevant and relatable. One of the few things consistent in the ever changing life of humans is the tendency to get things done faster than they were being done previously. Take a mobile phone for example, with every new launch “fast charging” facility is getting even “faster”. Progress is synonymous to speed and every new innovation aims at providing it and reducing the time we need to spend on completing tasks. But, what brings us joy needs our time.

All of us have wanted for games period to last longer than others and the crazy thing is that time always felt going faster during our favourite period. The same 45 mins that seemed to last ages during maths lecture (sorry maths lovers), ended in the blink of an eye when it was a free period. Indeed, time passes at its fixed interval, neither sooner nor later. It’s the amusement, the pleasure that makes us forget that time exists and we don’t even look at the watch like we do every 2-3 mins when something that doesn’t interest us is going on.

Remember how when we are excited for something, we avoid sleeping. Because sleeping makes time disappear without us even noticing it. Meanwhile a child who is going to meet his father after months will surely want to live through all the moments leading up to when he can finally hug his father. No doubt, we feel the joy of delay most distinctly when we’re in love. If you have ever made the night third wheel, then no one knows it better than you, your partner and the moon of course, how much you dreaded the alarm clock and the slight redness in the sky signifying the departure of moon.

As lovely the delay in the course of time feels when we are in love, as indispensable it seems when we are in a tough situation. From the panic over little things such as exams, where one or the other student is definitely seen asking the invigilator for 5 more mins, to actual life and death situations. Who wouldn’t want to spend some more time with an ailing family member whom we know for sure is departing the world very soon.

In a way, all of us are living in haste. Completing all the trivial tasks as soon as possible, so that when we find something that actually feels worth living for, we can dedicate all of our time to it. The futile hope of stretching time beyond its limit just to remain in the moment for some more time might be silly but those moments are what define us. The tasks we complete in haste are mostly same for everyone but what we want to live through longer, what we experience during that time makes us different and surely is very delightful.

Posted on by Anamika

For the materialistic love of a “bed”

It was a very ordinary bed I swear. Pic credit: Creazilla

Have you ever been emotionally attached to a pen, a watch, a car, or just a handkerchief? If you are a human being I’m assuming, yes. Degree of attachment may differ from person to person but it’s nearly impossible for me to believe that there is a person in this world who has never been attached to his/her wordly possessions.

I started thinking about this after we bought a new double bed replacing the old one that was on the verge of breaking anytime. When I asked my mother how many years has the older bed been with us , she said, ” it’s as old as your brother”. You see, there, from that one phrase you can decipher the value of that bed. It is associated with the age of a human, the only son of a family. So this bed which has already celebrated its silver jubilee at our home is saying a goodbye now.

In these 25 years things have drastically changed in our lives and this is the thing with these non- living items; they don’t change but they witness change. There was a time when me, my elder brother and sister, and my mother used to sleep on the same bed. Time flew by, we grew, but the bed remained the same, and we kept growing till the bed could accommodate just me and my sister. That bed has changed houses with us after we came to the city. It was one of the few items we had when we shifted to our own home. I remember when me and my brother hid under the bed and as soon as my sister walked in the room my brother suddenly held her leg, scaring her out of her wits. As a kid, laying down under the bed is such a comfortable thing to do. The new one doesn’t have space for anyone to hide, since it has storage boxes. The manufacturers know that with increasing income, space decreases.

I wonder if I would’ve felt all the emotions I am feeling right now if I was still a kid. As we grow older, the sheer happiness and excitement of anything new is replaced by lamentation and reminiscence over the old. The amount of memories with that motion, as well as emotion less piece of wood are immeasurable. All three of us siblings have studied on that bed leaving the study table to eat dust in one corner of the room. A bed is anyways a very dear item as it is associated with rest. The sleep you get at your home in your bed, even the super comfy Five Star hotel beds fail to deliver that. My mother used to call it our ‘nest’.

All of this sounds extremely futile right? Why be sentimental over a damn bed and write paragraphs about it? Every religion, every philosophy of life asks us to not get attached to anything in this world, not even human beings, not even the ones we have blood relation with. The world itself, which includes everything biotic or abiotic is called ‘materialistic’. The reason behind this is to make your departure from this world easier. But if there is one thing that makes us human more than anything else, it’s being helpless with regards to certain things. Nostalgia, is an emotion, in my opinion, reserved only for us. Or maybe animals too feel nostalgic, they just fail to express it.

Surely there is a difference between a moment of attachment and obsession. Attachments might get you in trouble in afterlife but obsession hurts you in this very own life. Now, I have no idea how to end this blog, all I can say is that as long as we live we will get attached to objects or people around us, might even obsess over certain things because more than a sin or stupidity, it is frail humanity.

Posted on by Anamika

A late new year post

This blog is a testimony that I have already broken my new year resolution, which was to post something here on every first and fifteenth of the month. Anyways, it took me some time to realise what actually is the significance of a new year? Why is the changing of a digit in the year column of the date or the replacement of a calendar so important to us? It doesn’t matter if you celebrate New Year or not. You cannot deny the fact that the new years eve has you reflecting on the past year and making plans for the next year.

The sole reason for this is the fallible nature of humans. Every one has failures and everyone commits mistakes. Thus, we are always looking for chances to make a fresh start. A new year gives us that chance or atleast a sense of starting anew. The hope of doing better in the coming year is what makes us celebrate its arrival.

Now, one may ask why don’t we celebrate a new month then? Honestly I don’t know. I am not a philosopher. All I can say is perhaps the burden of mistakes or disappointments not accumulated enough in a month to make us look for something new. Perhaps we still feel like we can handle it and put everything in the right place. But a year is a long time. It is long enough to make you tired and give up. And that is what makes the new year so significant.

Perhaps the tons of messages and greetings we receive on 1st January, comparing it to the rays of the morning sun or new blossom or the first page of a diary, albeit annoying, not wholly wrong. Everyone deserves to choose when they want to start their race against the odds of life. If they deem the start of a new year to be fit, so be it.

That being said, I would try to start my race from now on and probably keep my new year resolution too.