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Mighty Time And Prickly Hobbies Through Ages - An Introspective Analysis And A Guide To Future
When it was that man had an encounter with Time, that time took note on its diary? One of the world-wide-village where a Time Fair is getting co-hosted by Surf Excel Matic and Indiblogger , inventing a queer theme that make human souls float in journeys . Einstein had made it theoretically possible for moving on Time Scale while Steve Hawking made it believable. But oh man! it’s only here, that we are making virtual time travels that would have baffled the theorists. And journey so far is enjoyable, yet the end is not yet in sight. As more and more mortal humans get into time mode, more contributions pour and the hungry souls reappear from no where with votes, quotes and kudos. So, here I am with my final time travel journey on a different time scale!! Bechara two hours …you have been punched and beaten as if a boxing punching bag. Please excuse me, two hours extra time, if you get a few more cuts – bear it, dear as the curtain is closing on you in a few hours.
When it was that man had an encounter with Time, that time took note on its diary?
Time is the banyan tree that keeps its own history book oblivious of the desire of the lives how to make or shape its destiny. “Kung fu Panda” learnt it the harsh way that there was nothing secret in the secret formula of their popular family noddle soup – it was the belief in self that make time to take notice.
Time is a blank cheque given to all of us, and desire to plan and spend the same like a miser make a dint on the human surrounding – that’s how we got Bhagvan Krishna, Nirvana preacher Budha, God’s messenger Jesus, nirakar faith of Mohammad. Their hobbies, lifestyle and spending time continue to inspire humanity with awe. Here I present a diagram for lesser mortals like us. A diagram because time has its utility and utility of time depends on these influencers circled in the diagram. Among host of factors, Earth, Society, the Peer Group and Family interact with Self and finalises the Time Plan. When I was a kid, my time spent had family as major influences as we kid don’t believe in social rules that chain us to conformity. At adolescence till active youth, peer group act as central catalyst as I have seen in my life, while society and earth becomes the next in queue of influence. Once you get married, hubby as a new influencer appears to dominate and at times kick out the peer. As one age, family and peer come to settle score and get a truce with some form of time share arrangement – it’s a world of give and take, after all.
Hobby Diagram
At times of social upheaval like India’s independence movement, society stands as the influencer with peer group matching up neck-in-neck. These few variables predominantly decide about hobbies of lesser mortal, but can it be quantified for better understanding the hobby pattern and use the same by various stake-holders of society? Possible, but that is not what the theme we plan to discuss here. There are some conflicting interests that set the hobby roll – one and foremost and interesting is the Family Versus Peer Group dynamics. One that dominates the persona ultimately set the hobby pattern. Family by way of location in society hierarchy and society by way of its economic prosperity level and earth by way of its various resources like weather, hill, sea, river or nature of land mass, influences persona’s hobby pattern and ultimately set the ball for the choices of free time to be spent.
History is witness that whenever society’s intra strata stabilises, society get into upswing mode in economic prosperity, people’s creative juices get a booster. It’s humanity in peace that create, that innovate. It’s the creative, innovative time that expands to catch one’s free time.
What were the defining moments for our ancestor cavemen living in Bimbhedka near Bhopal that lead to such a creative surge of painting on rock dating back to one lac b.p.? Oh boy!That’s peace and safety of life.
Please watch the labourers in Sanchi who voluntarily offered free time to create such astounding works of sculpture since Ashoka touched the base in time before Christ! Those sculptors carry the mark of ancient time and how people in those near-by villages devoted their extra time for a social service in remembrance of Goutam Budha’s Jataka stories. The edict and the sculptor surrounds the edict portrays the communication standards between the people and the religious sect in the ancient era. Today dedicated TV channels doing the same on a different medium, saving time.
[Sanchi Jataka images taken by me in November 11]
Who am I? When I was born? - Where I am born – my city, my family, my Godfather, my acquaintances. That decides my daily routines and in a way, my way of creating spare time and spending it too.
How time used to be spent by Roman people when Rome ruled the world? People of Rome would spend hours in a stadium watching killer games – the prey and the beast; the gladiators fighting each hour to avert imminent death amidst cheering crowds thirsty of watching a river of human blood flow! That was the then Rome! Who can forget the famous story of Nero playing his guitar on his palace watching the collapsing and burning Rome!
If we look back in our own mythologies, we would have a few curious findings! Here are a couple, for a laugh!
How Pandavas used to kill their spare time? That would open up the funny side of human engagement. While the iconic Bhima , a born foodie, would have loved to live two extra hours more with gluttony as a faced of adventure and became the natural choice of Chef in Biratnagar Aggyatbas,
while talented Arjun the warrior would have gone to an open field to sharpen his archery skill. Do we find something similar with Tendulkar’s passion for daily practicing batting despite a cap full of feathers? The eldest and the wisest Judhisthira, in fine contrast, would be happy catching hold of Nakul or Sahadev and get engaged in a game of “Pasa”, or else, the eldest would withdraw himself into his inner world of self realization. After all, Judisthir was the Dharma-Raj, the renowned celebrity of virtuous life [ sssshhhh! whose announcing “Ashwathama Hata Eti Gaja” one of the game-changing lie in Mahabharat war!].
And if you cannot trace mama Sakuni anywhere in the palace , go straight to prince Duryadhan’s room and would find him toiling with practice of dice throw while guiding his nephew for the next plot to kill Pandavas.
Ram-Sita when in their banbaas period, were fond of sitting together and enjoy the beauty of forest. In such a pursuit of nature, on their abundant free time, they became very possessive of nature. When Sita spotted the rare golden dear and wanted to have it in the backyard, Ram, with enough free time, chased the dear. Ramayana narrates it as pre-destined. But could there be the Lanka Yudh, if Sita-Ram’s obsession to possess that golden deer was nipped in the bud. As a Time Traveller we are yet to go back in time like in movie Time Machine, and go back to correct the past mistakes to correct the cause to change the effect!
Two hours extra time?
Human race has progressed through advancement in technology and collective knowledge. Inventions one after the other, like inventing fire, society rule book of governance, cultivation and farming, irrigation, copper age, iron age, industrial revolution, radio-TV, telephones, satellite and space exploration, information technology, email, Desktop computing ..so on … each stages man has tried to excel in his daily chores by doing it better in less time. That’s the human motto! The spirit of survival! While one act becomes the destroyer of time, the other becomes saviour. While one section of human society invents to save human time on a gamut of daily economic activity, the other section explores in creative madness and branch out to entertainment space, to fill up the void. That’s how human civilisation blossomed.. All compartments of life are connected by flexible rubber valves, when one chamber expands, the other automatically contracts. What was the need of spare time at all, if the spare time were to be spent in the same way as the daily chores of monotony for just living? So, we have Earth Travel, Trekking, noisy Restaurants, cheery games shows, Health and Fitness fanatics and Laughing clubs, on the other extreme we have Pranayam Centres, movie halls, artists own world of make believe with or without peer groups, .
Can we take our eyes off those mal-nourished disease-prone “dirty” manual job workers who toil so hard to built the town, to push the skyscrapers to reach the sky – how do they spent time! Survey says that economic, educational and cultural roots of those labour families living in the make-shift rug houses and in slums enjoy their spare time on a measure of affordability. They, our poor brethren are victim of a social vicious circle orchestrated by generations of illiteracy. Illiteracy infests with fatalist “follow the herd” mentality with accompanying superstitions. Like a blind-folded cow in a grinding mill where the cow circles the poll for hours and don’t see a future with a new owner. That’s the attitude that millions of illiterate carry – a dark future look back at them with equal stoicism. The poor labourer get stuck to the same job and wait for the firing order with bleak future, as he understands that he cannot protest as there is enough applicants knocking the door. That leads to exploitation often to the level of physical torture and creation of industrial red zones with human traffickers’ paw clutching them. Do they journey into self exploration – they do as we recollect our childhood.
But how do they spend the extra two hours a day? Today’s story is of hope. He gets exploited but don’t want his son to suffer the same fate. Nation and its Constitution secure equality, but the desire to change has to get translated into hardcore action by the rulers. Till that becomes reality, our poor brothers would spend some of that time to earn some more money so that he can send his children to a decent education. No he don’t want his to be a child labourer as he has been. He wants him to study, to travel and to see that world is not that bad for those who want to explore. But the rest, majority would go for drinking the cheapest country liquor to get a mental lift and to swear with choicest abuses against - be it the malik or the contractor. As the evenings crawl towards night, the drunkard end up at home beating his working wife just to feel a bit better as liquor, abuse and beating or picking up a quarrel – these are the only recreational avenue our society has afforded for these poor fatalist illiterate beings. When the mid night struck, they jump on the available flesh for the cheapest entertainment earth has ever offered to its living partners, with or without consent and as the night watchman passes through the adjoining rich men’s society blowing whistle to alert the rich from the nocturnal unwanted house-breaking guests, here in the slums if you do not fall into that gang of night explorers, your one make-shift room with bed-kitchet-dining will melt with uneven sounds of human snores – at times interrupted with cries and bad dream breaks. They need that extra-hour of sleep to make themselves ready again for tomorrow’s struggle for survival.
Oh man! You have so much extra time ! Women envy you! Extra time of two hours is a boon for the working woman – Indian society’s Doshbhuja.
Indian woman has the chronic problem to manage home and office together while the hubby sits at home and watch TV at the end of his office duty. So, if we see the reactions of bloggers – the kind of joy and relief for woman is like a God sent gift, as they are so short of time despite having all the modern facilities. So, there is visible euphoria. Daily routine of an average Indian woman of a nuclear family, that too if she happens to be a working woman, in all economic layers of society, is so hectic, whoever make her two hour free, flower shower would fall from heaven!
[ You may read my popular article on Dashbhja – Ma Durga calling at http://indian-writer.blogspot.com/2010/10/ma-durga-calling.html ]
But, if you propose Dag Ache Hain, would a woman agree? Seeing my other half’s reactions, that slogan may be of inferior appeal to some women. Why? No. No working family wants to run the washing machine beyond once weekly. Kid may be happy having his fun with treks and splashing on muddy water in a seasonal rainy day, but no mother would like to see their kid falling in danger. And daag projects various types of lurking dangers. So kid fun has a direct conflict with homemaker’s damning desire to cut time in housekeeping. Encourage Stain is like bringing more tension for the lady who have to increase the frequency of washing. So, though we may all enjoy enjoy watching the ad, it is always felt that there must be a lurking fear in the mother’s mind …Daag acha Hain lekin Tension Acha nehi hain.
Two hours for a businessman is the quadratic equation of time reciprocates and moves with money. It is not known in the history of money making, whether more time necessarily result in more money or how far success stories are on prompt decision taken than on quantum of hours devoted. But still, the perception retains in corporate world of zig-zag-zoom and jei-crash--pauper that time has to be devoted, more you get more you may devote, if you are the entrepreneur who carries risk on his head of making profit or ruining with a loss.
When asked the same to a Ahmedabadi businessman with business vision, his face brightened up, ”I Would plan to spend that in the club, that’s the social and business networking place which can fashioned each of our needs – a bit of Hi-Hello and networking, some mix of capital and commodity bazaar chat, Page 3 gossip, Bollywood-local citywood and local city masala. Add to that, Suana or SPA --Ayurvedic Kerala oil massage, Raiki or Brahmakumari training,….some physical loosening up effort through badminton-tennis.” For a typically traditional West-aping Gujarati business man or woman, the two hours destiny is where their passion rests. That’s business and becoming wealthy. That’s maksha from the man on the street who sells vegetable on a hand driven lorry to the man on the corporate honchos. Each one wants to be that one more Ambani, one more Karshanbhai of Nirma fame, one more woman of Lijjat Papad fame or Women’s SHG fame Ila Bhatt. There are so many rags to riches real life stories that circulate in the air – seeds of entrepreneurial risk taking has ceased to make Newspaper headlines here unless it is too gigantic to ignore.
As a pedestrian on earth, one more hobby needs to get readers’ attention, without which this time travel would be hanging in suspense – that’s the world of sleeps and dreams. How many have the luxury of days of comfortable sleeps round the year? These segments are white-collar government servants. I have had the opportunity to watch them from a very close range, being my relatives and must admit that Govt of India and its extended hands have given them one boon – that is sleep well,beta ! After a while some of these public servants get so fed up, if you want to give them more free time, my PSU relatives would cry in unison–“plsss plsss don’t give us any more extra hours, we already have so much free hours to kill - Dag acha Hain lekin hamara free Time Acha nehi hain.Please spare us.” That’s what gets pronounced in their lifestyle routines. PSU readers excuse me for the comments but a section of PSU fellas are still like that. Anna Hazare would have been a flop had the govt fellas had no free time and had the citizen’s files moved from table to table on drop of a hat!!.
But whatever Govt fellas believe and behave with sleep in daily routines, I love to sleep, because sleep is so tranquil so majestic. In real life you are a pauper but in sleep you can be the Nabab Aurangjeb in your dream sequence.- switching you to a different world of make believe. The Living creatures are super obsessive with sleep – many would go for an extended nap, given an opportunity. Some of the sleeping postures of your own, if you watch fully awake, would make all of you laugh. Here are a few and you may be interested to pick up one that best explain your style and place of napping.
[Sleep Drawings copyright@SM]
But every man ( includes woman) has an alter ego too. One loves to plunge into beautiful resting mode in extra time, while the other is tearing me apart for writing this truth. So, now I need to finish off giving equal chance to my alter ego’s wish so that he don’t fight with me further.
Here is my Wish – I wish to write because I see, I wish to write because I read , I wish to write because I like to introspect. I have a dream of me living in the jungles of Sunderbans and spread the light of knowledge among the villagers. I would luv that village where people only smiles and don’t debate, all toil and don’t wait for fate to take its course. I would love to sleep in one of those muddy huts which rest under the shadows of trees and wake up in noon, take a towel and jump into the pond and swim with the swans. After a hearty rice meal served by my own village bohu, I would sit on the muddy gallery outside or go and sit beneath a Krishnachura tree and admire the life unfolding before my eyes – the rural life. I sit there on grass to pen my feelings. And when my fingers start aching, I would lie amid the sounds of nature and read RK Narayan, read Ruskin Bond .When my eyes get tired, it slowly closes my eyelids, I swim in a dream and join the party where villagers are celebrating the new harvest with a gala fun and feast.
I am an ordinary man and enjoy living a commoner life. Given a chance like a miracle with an “Exclusive Two Hours Daily” offer on a platter, I would love to do so many things, let me jot down those. The very idea brings cheers. An extended holi-day or an extended holi-hours. Hoping each one of my family has got an equal quota of two hours each as well, than my daily priorities would look like this – it’s a ordinary aam admi list.
[When you read this remember a man’s psyche is influenced by the art-cultural giants of his era. My favorites of silver screen and idot boxes – Mr Bean and Mr.Amal Palekar – are two unlike heroes but we revere them for critical middle class portrayal. Add to that the struggles of Chaplin in “Modern Times”, don’t forget to throw a few pinch of sad shehenai tunes of Ritwik’s “Meghe Dhaka Tara”( star hidden behind cloud) reminsicing of partition pains. How can be Middle class psyche without Ray’s Apu-trilogy and Saratchandra’s Srikant and Bibhutibhusan’s pro-green Aaranyak!. But my all-time next-door man of all seasons is ever green Amal Palekar of Goolmal fame. When in worse mood, watch Hrishikeshda’s “Goolmal” – it will act like sar-dard ki goli. When mind in sun shine then too watch “Goolmal” as it would be dil khus ki goli!]
The list of my free time duties –
First have a quick nap and then enjoy a sumptuous dinner with family chatting and watching a light movie.
Second, become an active blogger. Because when I joined the net in 1996, I thought email and later blog would make the dreams of Tagore come true – “Let All boundaries of countries disappear, we human beings live like one community on earth.” That dream I aspire to attend with more blogging time and more networking across nation, race, religion and caste (for Hindu Religion).
Thirdly, Get connected with a local unnamed NGO in South Bengal to give back my dues to the society in cash or in kind. Make it my duty to pay a part of my annual savings to the NGOs working for the uplift of the poor in Sunderbans forest land in South Bengal. [Here is my blog link for Bengal NGOs started one year back but could not move further. http://bengal-socio-financial-study.blogspot.com/2010/10/after-staying-years-away-from-home.html ]
Fourth, an unfilled desire when I would go back to my roots and settle down, Some of two hour time would be spent to reach the people, hold informal meetings and advice localities to do what Gandhiji did : To keep your neighbourhood clean. To make people aware and bring the feeling of pride in keeping locality clean and discourage people from littering the streets with all sorts of garbage, from cigarette butts, gutkha masala to plastic bags. Avoid spitting and defacing roads and government offices.
Fifth, I would seriously consider promoting Finance Literacy messages. Often I wonder that many an innocent citizen get into trap of financial agents and loose life savings due to sheer ignorance and often get misguided by commission agents in various disguise.– As I have painfully observed that the poor become poorer because they are illiterate of financial ABC. And my dream I nurture to see each corner of this earth become free of touts and cheats that would make each family’s fortune safe.with each one making disciplined financial strategy for the family. [May read my blog launched on this Navaratri-Durga Puja for taking a small step in that direction. http://homefina.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/multiply-your-money/ ] Let billions of smile bloom on earth
Oh time! would there be any minutes left ? If there be, let those minutes get filled with my recollections about earth and people. Oh readers! so Long!
copyright@Gm
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