Father Time

How is it we forget the simple truth that time is immutable? All due respect to the ardent believers in the warpability of the Time Space continuum, but lets face it. Till the time we’re able to zap our molecules around with impunity sans intervention from Scotty (spit all you want Eyjafjallajokull), or wrap our simple minds around the reality of the Q continuum in our daily lives, it’s best we acknowledge with a resounding whump, that time is everything. Our lives, our destinies, all hinge upon being at the right place at the right time. Or the wrong one at the right time, or right one at the wrong time or just well, somewhere at that point in time! What’s perfect right now, will vanish tomorrow if you can’t grab onto it. That perfect photo, the elusive best airline deal, the words that’ll wait.

If we’d known Geneva didn’t actually function like an International airport (as known to countries with regular 3 am departures), we’d have never rattled about a locked down airport discovering what instant recognition could be like. American. Indian. A decade apart. We knew each other. We were each other. If she’d left 4 seconds earlier, all of us might have been gorging on Bawa’s birthday cake in Kharghar. If the State Transport department ran their buses on schedule, I wouldn’t have had the urge to silence my mother with the untimely announcement that I was getting married. If it hadn’t been a leap year, I wouldn’t have. But the ST bus was hideously late, I did shut her up and… I got married. If I hadn’t gone in 2007, she’d still believe she was special. Timing. It’s everything. Implacable. Ruthless. Pitiless.

I’m reminded of Richard Bach's One. A book that clawed at my soul when I was of a susceptible age. The thought of having your One out there, but the timing always wrong. Maybe another lifetime, another dimension, another eon before you could be with your One. The magnitude incomprehensible, even as Ritchie Sambora’s tortured voice begs to turn back the clock. A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, as I acknowledge the futility of it. To be Indian, is to be fatalistic, even if grudgingly at best. Never in control, always in the thrall of circumstances. I don’t believe that. I believe I control my destiny, I have learnt to capture the image now rather than wait for the perfect angle, click on the Buy button, recognise when the phrase ‘another time, another life’ means something, walk away from the futility of wanting something impossible... It’s a hard fought battle, yet, I am Indian enough to know I will die when it’s my time and my time only. But till then, I will live the time I have, my way.