Anyone around who has time?

The joy of doing absolutely nothing is simply priceless.

Published at The Quint here.

Thanks are due to the team at The Quint. 

The unedited version below.

“Mere paas bahut khali samay hai, bahut doopherein aur shamein maine nitant akelepan me guzari hain”. I have a lot of free time, many afternoons and evenings I have enjoyed being alone, absolutely alone. This line, by Manav Kaul during a session at Jaipur Literature Festival - 2017, Kitna Kuch Jeevan, hit hard. When last did one hear friends, forget celebrities, say that s/he has lot of time or is free? Of the taboo lines today’s society has – this one is right up the list.

This - I do not have time – line has always had me perplexed. All of us have the same time – 24 hours – so is it not then about priorities? About the option or options we choose? Life, after all, is a series of trade-offs. So, if our priority is go to place X we act accordingly. It does not indicate that we do not have the time to go to place Y. In other words if our priority is to rush up the financial, social or academic ladder some aspects of life will become secondary and may suffer. Read we will not have time for them.  Groucho Marx, for example, was clear of his priorities when he said ‘I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.’

There is little in life which is permanent and priorities too change with time. As we move on the road of life we suddenly find time for actions which not long back appeared impossible. A friend, who did not have time for sports and fitness saying he was  ‘too busy for all that stuff’, a day after being told by the doctor that he could suffer a heart stroke if he did not begin exercising early mornings soon, was spotted on the badminton court! Remaining alive was a priority in this case!

Douglas Coupland had, years ago, written that ‘most people can’t handle a structure less life’. Today, the urban young and the not so young are often heard stating that they do not know what to do if they are free; they feel lost when free and hence prefer to remain busy. The ‘urban’ here is only on account my ignorance about their rural counterparts. Another friend had mentioned how life now resembled a conference – one did as one was told, tried to get one up over others around, over ate, was keen to speak and not eager to listen! Of course, in this stimulated environment, there is no free time.

In this age of certainty, structure and control, free time is akin to what ‘darkness’ once stood for. An area we are supposed to stay away from – for our own good. That, many a time, people are not sure of what is keeping them busy is another topic altogether.

We live in a time where irony could be our best teacher. The first link that came up when I searched ‘free time’ in Indian websites on Google was an article titled, ‘Time Management: Constructive ways to spend your free time’.

Children too – thanks to us adults – are today busier than perhaps ever before. In their highly packed schedules, usually as air-tight as their tiffin boxes, there is little time for them to be themselves. Amidst schools, sports, extra-curricular activities and other ‘in vogue’ activities what is at premium - and many a time lost altogether - is free time. Time where they get to decide what they want to do - including doing nothing. We are damming their river of life if we are taking away their free time. An educator had shared of how ‘the most crucial part of the multi day environment education camps he organized was the free time where children sat by themselves - to ponder, reflect and be silent. The importance of this silence and reflection has been emphasized since ages including by Confucious and Mozart’.

During school days an essay in the syllabus had many of us intrigued; the classic, ‘On doing nothing’ where J B Priestly brings in Wordsworth and God to wax eloquent about free time. It will be well worth our time to revisit the essay and mull it over.