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Stray thoughts on a year gone by
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A minute could be as long as a lifetime or an entire year could pass by like one single minute
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— Photo: Reuters
In time, the disaster will stop making the headlines. — Photo: Reuters
"TIME REALLY flies," said the six-year-old philosopher to me. I solemnly agreed.
"So quickly 2004 has passed," he continued. It had, indeed.
"Even though they added One Whole Day in February, STILL it passed so quickly."
Now that is a phenomenon Uncle Einstein would have been able to explain. One day when added to 365 amounts to nothing, but when your weeklong vacation is stretched to eight days, the difference is palpable. Makes you realise how a human life span is just a fraction of a millisecond when compared with the infinity of time.
Kids are not philosophers, really. It is we adults who interpret their simple statements and discover new meaning in them. The six-year-old, carrying forward a freshly learnt lesson on "positive, comparative and superlative," decided to apply it to his Hindi homework. He wrote the words in varying sizes of big, bigger, biggest, and small, smaller, smallest.
Everything has to do with relativity. One day can be longer than 365. A single event at the end of a year can tip the balance. A single death, for the family to which it happens, weighs more than hundreds of thousands do, for the disinterested viewer.
"Tsunami" has entered the primary school vocabulary (just as "Osama" did three years ago) but I do not think a child can fully absorb the enormity of its consequences. On the other hand, big, bigger and biggest are microscopic when compared with the vastness of space. The universe hardly felt the tiny wobble of the earth on its axis.
Nature, a child at play, decided to give the old ocean bed a shake or two. Like a toddler in a bathroom she stuck her foot into the middle of the basin and watched the water lap the edge, watched the toy human figures get sucked in.
We know we cannot order the ocean to be still, unlike little children who constantly demand the impossible. Not only do they demand it, but get furious when it isn't given to them.
"I want warm ice-cream," howls the two-year-old. Her mother pops the dish in the microwave and serves it. "Now it's all melted," howls the two-year-old. It has to be warm. It has to be solid. And it has to be ice-cream.
As impossible as breathing life into the dead. As impossible as making time stand still. The little boy on the playground tells his friend, "I'm going to be your age soon. I'm going to be six." He thinks he can catch up, that time moves only for him and that it stands still for his friend. Sure enough, his friend responds: "I'm not six. I'm going to be seven."
Children find it awfully hard to grasp the concept of time — not that we adults find it any easier, though we imagine we do. One small boy was travelling from Bangalore to Chennai. "How long will it take?" he wanted to know. Six hours, his father told him. Every two minutes he would ask, "Have we reached?" He was too young to understand what the hour-hand and minute-hand of the watch stood for. One hour, one minute, it was all the same to him. A minute can seem like a lifetime if you're impatient to reach your destination.
And a minute that changes life into death can be the longest minute you ever experienced.
We cannot make time stand still but we can go back in time if we go far enough into space. Hypothetically, if you're five light years away and are able to see what's happening on earth right now, you would be seeing what happened here five years ago, history repeating before your eyes.
If you're far enough in space, the tsunami hasn't hit our planet yet. But you wouldn't be able to stop it from happening, so what's the point? If all you wanted to do was watch it again, there's the TV, broadcasting the same footage over and over again.
The water rising, bodies in mass graves, people screaming in anguish.
Children often scream for no reason. Just listen to a bunch of children in an auto returning from the crèche. They're yelling their heads off for the heck of it. To give the lungs some exercise. If adults did that kind of thing they'd be called insane. It must be a blessing to be able to scream without emotion. Scream not because you're angry, sad, or excited, but just to feel alive.
I'm alive. She isn't. You're alive. He isn't. He had a miraculous escape. She didn't. Don't ask for explanations.
In time, the disaster will stop making the headlines. "Time really flies." We keep discovering the cliché anew. Nobody wants to dwell on the past. The child asks impatiently, "When will I be a big girl? How long before I turn 14?"
We're all impatient for the future. We wish one another a happy 2005. Perhaps the year might turn out to be a little happier if we give, give to those who have lost everything but their lives.
C.K. MEENA
Send your feedback to ckmeena@rediffmail.com
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