Kalah kreedathi

When God created this world with all its ups and downs, the rich and the poor, the highs and the lows, the curves and the straight ones, the beautiful and the ugly, the blacks and the whites, the republics and the democrats, he gave one thing that is equal to all - time!

Whether you are a filthy rich son of a politician having money to burn or a poor beggar struggling for two square meals a day, a dedicated student working hard for that elusive rank in an exam or an idler whiling away all your time, a veteran Tendulkar or a debutant Jason Krejza, the inquisitive, overzealous young child investigating everything in sight or the dormant, old grandpa lying on bed all day, live near the warm equator or in the icy polar regions, a small ant or a huge elephant, an entry level junior engineer or the CEO of a company - you get equal time -24 hours a day. No more, no less!

Time is one of the basic entities in this world. Whether you like it or not, it keeps ticking along in magnitudes of micro/nanoseconds on a computer; in magnitudes of milliseconds in athletics; in magnitudes of seconds on that costly ISD call; in magnitudes of minutes in an important exam; in magnitudes of days and months during summer/semester holidays; in magnitudes of years in an individual's life; in magnitudes of centuries and millennia along the course of history. And in all these cases, it does its work diligently - just ticks along with utmost precision! No wonder then, along with mass and length, we term it one of the basic scalar quantities in physics.

Sometimes I keep wondering, what if we had the ability to stop time or change its pace? Maybe substitute some time-block in place of others? The world would then be an interesting and nice place to live in. We could re-live the moments that we enjoyed over and over again and fast forward the bad ones. The great depression and the worst recession could have been over within the wink of an eye and the happy times could go on and on. The terrorist acts could have substituted for the heroic acts. Rahul Dravid, my favorite cricketer who is on a dreadful patch right now could carry on the glorious Adelaide form forever. Wouldn't life be so nice?

The fantasy could go on and on. People could even buy and sell time then. Then a Mukesh Ambani could go on to buy all the poor peoples' times and live for more than 1000 years on his riches. The poor and the jobless people could make money by selling time. The Kareenas Bipashas and Deepikas never had to worry about aging and having to make way for someone else. The software companies could buy more time to deliver quality products on time. And when no client bought their product, they could even sell time. Then what a weird world it would all be. But fortunately or unfortunately, all this is just fantasy. Nothing of that sort can happen for real. So all you Ambanis and Bill Gates out there, better watch out - you have only one life to live. And the Bipashas will have to eventually make way for Deepikas and so on and so forth. The creator has done everything for a reason and in that lies the excitement of life. The less time one gets to prove oneself, the more recognition they get. Everything has to happen in a limited time frame- the joys, the sorrows, the mysteries, the money, everything. No comments on the fly-overs and subways that go on for ages :-) The cycle of time rolls on come what may. No wonder then, the one-dayers draw more crowds than the test matches and more recently, the T20s even better than the one-dayers.

Of late, I haven’t posted anything on my blog site. If you have noticed, the last post was more than a month ago, on my birthday. And in that month, I have posted three posts. The simplest and the most easiest of the excuses would be a two word, "No time!". But, if I had known earlier that I would not be posting for more than a month, maybe I could have divided the earlier posts more evenly.

Most people give that nice and simple excuse for not doing work or something that they like doing - "No Time". Its easy and simple. No one even questions you about it because, as I said earlier, time cannot be bought or sold. Broadly speaking, this excuse can be divided into 2 cases - not giving time when you can which is laziness; and not giving time when you can't which is helplessness. The latter is atleast acceptable while the former is not. Suppose a son cannot help his ailing mother when he has loads of work at office, then it can be considered a case of helplessness. But even on a holiday if he still prefers to loaf around, then it is really unacceptable. Most of the times, the case of helplessness arises due to the initial laziness. When a project is in early stages, we usually waste time and don’t concentrate hard. Then, when the deadlines near, the helplessness begins to show and we become frustrated. Could this not be avoided if we followed the schedule right from start? Maybe yes, but there is no way to go back in time to see if that happened. Time always goes forward. No reverse gear :-(

I have usually been a bad manager of time. I don’t know whether it was engineering college that got this change in me or I was like this from before. It is a case of egg first/hen first. During college days, I had two friends who were very dedicated to studies and who used to always work hard. If we had 10 days to study for an exam, we used to plan properly what had to be done for the 10 days. Then, those two friends would go on to execute the plan properly while I being the lazy guy would somehow allow the time to drift. And finally when 2 days remained, I used to panic and go to a helpless position. Then I used to wonder if I could buy some time from someone to finish my studies.

Anyway all those times are just memories now. Those crucial one-night stands before exams remain an integral part of college life nostalgia. But I really admire the planners who managed their time well. One of them is now trying for a career in civil services which requires dedicated efforts. I am sure he will get there because he has always been hardworking. I wish him all the best.

So what has been happening in last one and half months? So much actually. At home, my sister got married and we all had been to Pune for a trip. At office, a new project started and I have been busy in that. The Indo-Aussie series has been absorbing as ever. Diwali came and went bringing with it lots of fun and happiness. I fell sick, recovered and fell sick again! and yes, I got a nice bike :-)

All said and done about importance of time, I am hoping I will be able to improve my time management skills so that it helps myself, my current project, my future career and my life as a whole. Will try and post more consistently from now. Do come back for more on the bike and other issues. Take care.

PS: The title of the post is taken from the great Adi Shankaracharya's Bhajagovindam. You can read the entire sanskrit text and the gist here (text 12)