NO TIME FOR ANYTHING!

BY BISWADEEP GHOSH

I am not very different from Indian passenger trains that chug-chug their way through the small towns of India, stopping here, there, just about anywhere, because I firmly believe that life is basically about unscheduled stops. Roald Dahl’s theory about briskness being the most common characteristic among successful individuals can go to hell, and mainly because while I have been mistaken for being talented very often, I am anything but successful. Besides, the only inevitability about life is death, but when that is going to take anyone of us away to some unknown realm nobody can prognosticate. So, why care about timing every thing in life? (I had bumped into the story of a really successful idiot who times his diurnal journey to the loo. After hearing that, I had exclaimed by using the most common metaphor of the new millennium: shit!”)

But then, I happen to occupy a peculiar slot which many people would not like to share: in other words, I respect my Thomas Pynchon, find time for my music and working on a second book which doesn’t belong to the club of biographies which I had unleashed upon many star-struck readers very recently. I manage to make telephone calls, file reports, make pages, meet people, attend press conferences, without any respect for time management. Why? Because I believe that lethargy is a disease that cripples you, but slowness a virtue that allows you to internalise the finer nuances of life that you overlook should you be in a rush forever.

Having been in the business of book reviewing, I also know of a lot of people who masquerade as ‘intellectuals’, a word with a comic implication often. For, these people have an uncanny knack of knowing what nobody does, but not knowing what everybody must. Married to their wrist-watches all through the day, they constantly crib about running short of time which is why they can’t ‘study’ a Kurosawa film ‘more’ thoroughly. Yet, should you see through them which is easy, you will know they possess just two things. A passion for bull-most-common-metaphor-ting, and lots of time!

Run, man, run. That seems to be the mantra motivating the actions of many who hate walking a couple of kilometres in full public view, cannot use the public transport system, do not do any thing that needs patience because they cannot afford some serious expenditure of time. Run, just, run. Run, sprint, flee from any thing, just about anything that is meaningful, wearing hats of hypocrisy concealing unimaginative brains that have just one strong point. While their collective affirmation of not having time is a lie, they at least do not have intellectual pretence that can assault any unsuspecting conversationalist and drive him nuts!

Courtesy their passion for time management, however, twenty-four hour days get over in sixteen hours. That leaves them with eight hours that they spend very happily, sitting on beanbags, making love to mobile phones.