It all started from a simple dinner cooked by me and how he enjoyed it and childhood memories...which brought us to talk about that man with a "handi" on his head who came every Sunday morning to deliver our favourite breakfast of Kachuri and aloor dom ( puffed bread and potato curry)...Abanida...never late..always at sharp 8.30 am ( at times we would crib and groan about the punctuality on a Sunday morning!)...always with a smile and piping hot food...which you could keep for two days and not have the same feel as a soggy re heated pizza!
yes we miss those days ...not just childhood..which we always do...but those days when work did get done...without mobiles, without computers and ipads and without the 23 minute delivery promise of a Domino's or Pizza hut. We had more time to meet people and take time to write to them in our own handwriting rather than shooting off a quick email...days when birthday cards meant not a click a way...when text messages meant writing something on paper and phone calls meant you were at home or office and not on the move..
Have we moved on or moved away? Both perhaps?
Moved on from the real things in life..the whole concept of reality has changed...
Moved away from the real things that matter and the personal touches that have the warmth of our touch...
Moved on from believing in basic human feelings and moved away to machines that rule our senses and make us less and less human...
Much has been talked about being enslaved to a mechanical world... and am not saying we arent or not saying something that hasnt been said before...but what I am wondering is when did we stop being worried of this pace we are enslaved to? Do we get in pace because we have to or because we may fall behind? Do we like it at all?
Its sends a chill down my spine when lines written a few decades ago still ring true! Then have we really moved on or just become more breathless?
"what is this life if full of care...we have no time to stand and stare?"
As the TGV passed fields of lazing cows and horses racing under a clear blue sky through the French terrain a few days back...I felt blessed on two accords..blessed that I could take out time just to stare out into the pristine innocence and look at nature in alls its vibrancy and blessed because somewhere in some parts I could still see a call of the wild and a call out to where we truly belong...
Is setting a slower pace really that crazy? Or are we crazy to run faster to the end? what are we racing towards anyway? what are we out to achieve? A faster pace that will engulf us all...
The church bell outside rings 12 noon...and again I feel a peace within.. somewhere there is still the time to count the gongs and not just a fleeting glance at a mobile phone world time clock...
Or does the church bell gong ring away and no one notices? How many such things do still happen without us even knowing or caring to observe... isn't it a call to remind us that the real world still is out there and all we need to do is just feel it?
The feel of a friends love when you see a letter or a card in the post box...and not one more bill to be paid or one more marketing "chit" seems a distant call to the past...the happiness of a family movie out rather than couched up and watching one alone when WE have the time...and so much more...
have we allowed ourselves to be so engulfed by this whole pace that we dont even notice how life slips away like sand through fingers? Where are we headed to anyway?
Am not saying we chuck our computers and chuck our phones and chuck all that we have "achieved" as a "race"...but all we need to do is not get so crazy to hoard and hound that we dont know how to savour the simple joys...the more complex we make our lives the more we forget our inner selves...and the more we forget to look within... we move away from our our core being...
