ON DOING NOTHING

Every evening, I need to cross a railway check gate in the outskirts of the town to go to the swimming pool. And invariably, the gate is always closed around that time to allow some train or the other to pass through. On all these occasions, it is always a delight to sit inside the vehicle and observe how people around take to this sudden halt to their daily business. Most often than not, I find people fretting, grumbling and complaining about this forced wait. They, after all, have important things to attend to and a wait of 15 minutes is such a criminal waste. Is it?

I habitually find that the betel and tea shops of my small town become abuzz with activity around dusk. Menfolk, irrespective of age, gather around these shops and while away hours altogether. I have nothing to complain regarding this mode of leisure. But yes, I do wonder that as a society, as a country, why do we stir up a fuss of being always so busy, always in a hurry and always so very impatient? Many a times, I have had the strong urge to roll down the windows of my vehicle and tell people at the railway crossing that the skies wont collapse on their heads if they stood still for a few minutes, enjoyed the breeze around and didn’t take pains to dodge below that gate, negotiate themselves and their vehicle through the tracks just to save a few minutes. Sadly, for all the efforts we make to be so fastidious about saving time, we are not exactly known as a nation of time-keepers. We are generally late in keeping appointments, meeting deadlines and are also known to be pretty casual about the sense of time. Then why this artificial hurry..this rushing around like headless chickens. It hardly serves any purpose.

In a similar vein, I find that there is huge peer pressure in my service to profess to be busy and be occupied all the time. So much busy that some colleagues openly flaunt their leave accounts like score cards: they have not taken a leave or gone on a holiday since ages as they are so devoted to their jobs on hand. In the midst of such seemingly career devoted workaholics and time conscious citizens, I get reminded of a beautiful essay I read in college. It was called “On doing nothing”. Herein the author had sung paeans on the pleasure of just lying down on the grass, looking up at the blue sky and just doing nothing. I believe such blissful moments of doing nothing are such an essential part of our existence. For they relax our minds, bodies and spirits and prepare us for the next challenge. I recall my French tutor recounting stories of massive traffic jams in Paris on Friday evenings for everybody wants to holiday over the weekend so that Monday can be looked into the eye with utmost courage. Compare this with our dispensation where an application for leave is met with utmost scorn and the applicant must explain his/her distress in most piteous terms to get the leave sanctioned. And heavens shall fall on the one who dares to take a leave to do just nothing..nothing at all. Yes, the idea seems preposterous to many. But for all this seriousness and dedication, our work productivity is pretty marginal. I am no theorist but I gauge that one of the reasons could be that we are perennially tired and bored. We don’t own it up but the truth is many lose interest in the work at hand. It is the drudgery and the lack of fortitude to own it up which makes us grumpy persons and professionals.

How I wish I could land a copy of that great essay and exhort people to take a break,....do nothing. It wouldn’t turn around our lives around, for sure. But maybe, it would make us a little happier, contended and give us the effervescence to smile during the next closed railway gate or merrily hum around in our offices on a Monday.