Legend has it that there was once a place where time was not a commodity.
It was not bought or sold. For there was no price to pay. For there was no cost to time. It could not be traded. Nothing, then, could be enslaved by time.
No one in this land was a slave to man-hours. It was a land where everyone was free.
But now, the stories of place are only spoken in hushed voices. Some believe it is not a land, but a time long past. However, rumor has it that there is a secret path to that land where time is not that we fill, but that which fills us.
Time there is that something you never think about. It is the sweet fragrance of the jasmine flowers, freshly spread on the ground, as if to welcome you. It is the sweet breeze that carries this fragrance as it kisses you affectionately. It is the morning dew that, as if by chance, feels you instead of the jasmine flower. It is the rays of the sun that caress you gently, with the warmth of love. It is the moon that dances eloquently amongst the stars as it fondly plays hide and seek. It is the music of the spring that sings to you as it flows gently to become one with its love, the river. It is the call of the hornbill as it joyously announces to you its games with its mate in the dense grove of trees. It is the eagles soaring in the skies, lifting your spirits with them. It is the symphony of the crickets as they call out in unison, celebrating the harmony of the universe.
Time in that land is where you are filled with magic, mysteriously. Time there is the eternity the universe fills into you.
There are many stories about how time came to be a commodity.
Once upon a time, they say, there was a man called Physicus. They say he was a second cousin of the king of a bygone time. A king who was known by the name Midas. A king whose name lived through the ages for the power to turn everything he touched to gold.
Physicus too was gifted like his cousin. His was the power to control everything he touched. Like Midas, he wished to control everything he touched.
Physicus wished he could decide what time filled him with. He thought he must improve the fragrance of jasmine. He thought how wonderful it will be to bottle up the fragrance so he could have it whenever he wished! Then the thought crossed him of harnessing the breeze and putting it within four walls that blocked out the breeze that used to come mysteriously.
“If I can bottle the fragrance of jasmine, surely, I can bottle the ray of the sun and beckon it in the dark night”, he thought.
He built a dome to project the stars and the moon within the four walls, that he could not see, anymore, as the light he had bottled up hid them from view. He decided to put the stream into a pipe so he could use the space to build the walls that had to be lit up by his bottled light, had to be filled up by his harnessed breeze and had to be scented by his bottled fragrance. As for the play of the hornbill, he thought, “I’ll build a device to record every moment and fill up time!”, announced Physicus in excitement. He had become his image of God.
But eagles do not soar in four walls. And crickets do not sing in unision when the universe has no harmony.
In the world that Physicus created, you filled time. It was not a world where you allowed time to fill you. It was the world where you took control, not a world where you let the universe unfold its magic. Filling time is expensive. It comes with a cost. It requires man-hours.
So Physicus soon discovered he needed bottled spirits to soar his spirit. But Nothing however could make the crickets sing in unison. For there was nothing he could do that could bring harmony into the universe. Like Midas, Physicus was a broken man.
Harmony, after all was the magic that time filled into our lives, not what we filled into time.
They say 2020 was designed to send us the secret map to the land where time fills our lives.
One where we do not seek to bottle up the fragrance of the jasmine. One where we do not want to control the breeze in our four walls.
One where we do not seek to bottle light and make it a genie to act at our beck and call. One where we let our springs sing in joy that they will soon merge with their love, the river. One where the eagles learn to soar higher and take our spirits into clear skies.
One where the moon dances among the stars, smiling us across continents without 5G. One where the symphony of the crickets celebrates the harmony of the universe.
May time fill your life once more!
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#All views expressed in this column are the authors and/or individuals that may be quoted and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to the same>
He can be reached @AnupamSaraph
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