Unwelcome Enlightenment

Life, be it in the 21st century or any of the preceding centuries, is full of mysteries. Some mysteries are such that not even the most brilliant minds manage to explain them, no matter how hard they try. The average person, if there truly exists such a being, would no doubt be utterly perplexed by these enigmas. Then again, there are some mysteries that have so simple an explanation, that the human mind of the 21st century simply rejects them, being accustomed to complex solutions for every problem. After all, if a problem were simple, it would have been solved long ago. How could a question, that had been left unanswered for so long actually have such a simple answer? Somebody probably came across a flaw with the simple explanation, so it would be best for one to keep their mouths shut, lest they be rudely awakened from their dream world by some greater enlightened being.

For example, one can take the concept of time. Nine out of ten people, when asked to define the concept of time would begin with, “Time is… time… I mean something like…” and so on.  People are so busy, so lost in their hectic lives, so caught up with managing the precious little time they have in their hands everyday, that they never even stop to consider what this quantity is, that they are so eager to conserve. They don’t mind mingling their body odour with deodorant or their morning breath with mouth fresheners to save a little bit of time. They claim to have realized the value of something whose nature they truly don’t understand.

Nobody knows when the concept of time came into existence. Philosophers still argue over it whenever they’ve run out of less important topics to muse over. But these very philosophers, who admit that even they do not have a complete understanding of this mind-boggling, yet seemingly simple concept, carry on their person a device meant to accurately gauge this vague quantity. Truly, if ever the need arose to redefine the term hypocrisy, these people would certainly have some valuable contributions to make to the cause. However, should need actually arise for such a restructuring of the English language, 18 year old Anand Enandu would have very little to offer to the cause, or any other cause for that matter. He wouldn’t be able to devote the time and energy to any such undertaking. Not on this day, not at this time.

Anand Enandu had quite a sound understanding of the concept of time. While he may not have been able to express the concept effectively enough to lend his understanding to others, his cognition was more than sufficient to vindicate his desire (if need be) to conserve it. However, as is often (and frustratingly so) observed, those in possession of such a rare and elusive treasure are hardly equipped to make good use of it. As was Anand Enandu, for he showed no inclination to quicken his dragging pace as he scraped his worn out heels across the stone paved joggers’ path in the local park. The mid morning sun shone warmly on the wavy black hair that sprang from his oily scalp, inducing him to raise a bony hand and scratch off yet another flake of itchy dandruff. His bloodshot brown eyes scanned the usual morning crowd around him, mostly people who were anxious to lose some of that extra flab around their waists by jogging and likely to end up with stiff limbs in a day or two. Any other person might have found it funny; imagining a person jogging around the park, puffing and panting, pausing every ten seconds to catch their breath, quitting after ten minutes of the ordeal, and heading home hoping to have lost ten Kilos in the process.

More sensible were the people who chose to stride at a brisk pace around the park for half an hour, measuring their weight once in every fortnight. None of this mattered to, nor amused the skinny eighteen year old, who had now managed to shuffle to the park’s corrugated gate. He made his way at just as leisurely a pace back towards his house. He saw the shopkeepers and hawkers opening up for the day, paying no heed to their clamorous calls, shuffling by, with his chin tucked into his chest, shielding his eyes from the sunlight. He crossed the road with no change in velocity, almost being run over by a commuter who had risen early that morning to be able to reach work on time, only to have to waste five precious seconds to avoid hitting an unmindful pedestrian and five more to hurl verbal abuse at the absent minded madcap. The verbal abuse seemed to have had as little an effect on him, as almost being run over by the sleek car.

He passed by the stall of the paanwaala at the corner of the street where he lived and received an earnest invitation from the vendor to be his first customer of the day, however, he declined the offer with a solemn, absent-minded shake of his head. He’d stopped eating paans of late. He shambled ahead in his Bermudas and wrinkled T-shirt that hung from his thin frame, slowly progressing towards the slightly less corrugated gate of his own house, not noticing that his car was no longer parked outside. He paid no attention to the fact that the latch on the gate was out of its place and pushed open the gate. He was still lost in his own world of thoughts as he unlocked the door to his house and reclined on the patchy, old, rexine covered sofa in front of the television. He made no attempt to switch on the gadget, simply leaning back on the ancient piece of furniture with a faraway look on his face. He somehow seemed to have remembered that the device violently discharged electricity from its screen when switched on. His mother had asked the technician to come over and have a look at it, but he too, was taking his own sweet time about it (though his understanding of the concept was nowhere near as accurate as Anand’s). The thought of his mother seemed to bring him back to the present. He remembered that she usually prepared breakfast for him before leaving for work.

Sure enough, he found a double medium fried omelet and four slices of toast waiting for him in a plate on the kitchen counter. He extracted a glass of milk from the fridge and added five drops of filter coffee to the lipid rich liquid, then a sachet of sweetener to the resultant murky brown beverage and carried it, with the plate to the adjacent dining room and set it on the table by the window, taking extra care to place the glass away from the palm leaf patterned cream curtains covering it. As he dispassionately munched the Luke-warm meal with the cold liquid he had forgotten to heat, he felt the curtains brush his bare legs from a draft coming in through the open window. It made his heart skip a beat, causing the toast to remain lodged halfway down his throat for a second longer than normal. Then, recovering, he swallowed, leaving the consumed food at the mercy of his peristaltic esophagus.

Just as he was halfway through his meal, he heard a sound from the kitchen that renewed the goose-bumps on his leg. He got up to investigate, leaving his unfinished meal to grow stone cold on the table, his heart beating faster and louder every second. He entered the kitchen, trying to determine the source of the metallic clang he’d heard. His gaze narrowed on to the steel vessels on the lower shelf as he espied a slight movement among them. He saw a little rat scurry from its hiding place as he shifted a vessel, and into the dark niche next to the dustbin under the kitchen sink. Anand fetched a mug from the bathroom, hoping to overturn the container on the rodent and set it free a few streets away. He stuck his head into the niche and found the rodent huddled up in a dark corner, hoping the new apparition hadn’t noticed him. Anand had noticed him, but made not attempt to displace the unwanted tenant. He now collapsed onto his buttocks, a lump forming in his throat that had nothing to do with the toast he had consumed and tears welling up in his bloodshot brown eyes, distorting his vision. And then, for the umpteenth time in three days, he remembered.

“Give me a smoke,” Anand remembered himself telling the Paanwaala who sat outside the entrance to the State Transport Bus Depot, inserting his left hand into his pocket to withdraw his wallet while his right clutched at an instrument of restraint that was being put to its designated use , though it was rather long as the standard sizes went. He remembered feeling the relief wash over him and filling his lungs with the honey flavoured fumes that licked the walls of his starved lungs as he puffed, contentedly shielded from his mother’s sight or knowledge.  He remembered not noticing another person across the street, grasping a similar instrument of restraint, connected at the other end to a creature that seemed to be of great interest to the creature at the end of his own. He remembered raising his head to the sky, preparing for the ‘golden puff’, the ‘cream of the cream’ in his cigarette as his pet made full use of his extra long leash and tried to cross the street to the female at the other end. He remembered not noticing the motorist who seemed to be in a hurry to get to work on time…not at the right time anyway.

As he stared through his tear filled eyes at the distorted view of the packet of commercial dog food and the blood stained nylon leash that his mother had so carefully concealed from his view and remembered some more. He remembered the words of the doctor from the animal hospital. They ripped through his consciousness like the speeding car must have mangled his pet’s flesh. “I’m afraid he’s suffered multiple fractures to his skull, and he’s losing a lot of blood too. There’s not much hope.”

He remembered the furry black rat like creature that used to sit next to him at the break fast table, fanning his legs with his constantly wagging tail. He remembered the adoring black eyes and the cold wet nose that used to greet him every morning at five am; the time for his morning walk. He remembered the squarish head that used to hide itself in his mother’s lap every time he saw the family veterinarian enter the house, hoping the man would disappear if he didn’t look. He remembered the warm, moist tongue that scraped his legs as he gently tickled Ribsir under his paws and the narrow jaw he used to kiss goodnight. He remembered all of these… covered in blood, and as he sobbed, clutching the bloody leash close to his quivering lips, he realized that he would never be able to enjoy those moments again.

He now understood the true value of time. He understood… that it was not something to be measured, but to be treasured, as it made no sense to conserve it if one could not be assured that the time in the future would be as pleasurable as the time in the present. He knew that such moments would never return.
He had found out the hard way. He wished that he had lesser time on his hands now; he wished to be freed of those brief moments that had changed his life and seemed to haunt him all the time.
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