A Reply to My sister’s hunt for Potential moments:

 

It was in many ways the 7^th attempt to steal a few moments out of 24 hrs to complete this piece of writing…the opening blast came when there was a door bell... the News-paper-man came to clear his dues. Obviously, he had to come at the end of the month... I put my pen down and took accounts of his days and holidays, paid the bill and sat for a moment to bring my mind back to the track.

Friends !! there was another bolt waiting… an important phone call from a student, who needed urgently the answer of a particular question, put my survival of being a teacher at stake …ok …I ran for the book to find out the answer for which I was not sure. After 15 minutes there was a call from the pressure cooker which I have kept on the gas-oven and for the time being I did ignore its existence ... oh!! I galloped for that and found that item inside was almost struggling for its existence but nevertheless survived. In between I failed to remember where I was. Anyway I sat on the bed again and clung to my pen and was meditating where I was …I was collecting myself …and lo!!! There was once more knock on the door since there was load-shedding, so there was no door-bell and the Secretary of the Housing-complex was asking for Puja Subscription. Apparently few small talks were cashed out for no reason except courtesy. Too many and too few awkward conversations prolonged for the welfare of the residents. Although there was no interest on both sides, still it went on for a while. I was afraid we might lapse into nonsense or launch into verbal disputes ...I fearfully cut ourselves off seeking excuses, but in the process many of the moments tripped out of my hands.

The ideas were flying away from my mind but I was determined to finish the piece. So I got back to my sitting-posture and was absolutely in Buddha’s pose to revive the thread of the thought. Suddenly…Suddenly… I remembered that today was the last day of depositing the money of the electric bill and since I am a technologically challenged person so I collected the bills, money and rushed for the electric office. Wait... I rushed for the bus first. And there was huge crowd in the bus; but I somehow pushed and got on the bus. There were Moments of ‘Stop!’ (red light),  and ‘GO’ (green light), and ‘I don’t even know what I’m doing’ – when there was yellow light. Precious moments were going down from my hands. I was looking out from the bus window,…stacks of trees fell in last storm which were yet to be cleared, blinded blocks of cement… pyramidal-sand-formation and pebble-dome and none but piles of garbage after every few steps…and  My Goodness !! the bus was heading towards the cavern of an election road show…the bus was turning left and sometimes right but there was no acquittal…. I doubted if I would ever reach the electric-office, but keeping my head cool, knowing full well how my way led on to my destination, I went placidly amid the noise and haste. After 2 hrs of journey I was too tired.

After coming home, I sat for a cup of tea to cool my mind down. I made a cup of tea and sat with TV on…Oh there were news of violence, murder and other political mis-happenings, I was surfing the channel and by the time I went for a sip it was really cold …. Cursing the fate for its insolence, I decided to go for another cup of tea…but lo!!! there was no chance of making second cup of tea, for, the gas was finished and I went for fitting the gas cylinder and now I was neither in mood to sit for writing which I postponed for the next day nor interested in navigating the channel, …I decided to take complete rest and relax with rolled Newspaper waiting for me to take the global journey. Though I know it was in vain … kindling attempt to spark my moment…still as soon as I was about to lie down … phone was screaming and there was a voice of house-maid that she would not be able to come today because she had to finish an urgent work in the bank. The rooftop was gradually dangling on my head and I was scratching my head like anything… what to do? Colossal of utensils and clothes were looking at me and the floor was waiting for cleaning, mopping and rubbing... tumultuous scenario was seen in the kitchen vis-à-vis in the house … There were casualties all around. Writing ― already kept aside ― was lying on the bed openly inviting me to finish it. But now I had no such disposition to think over it, I was blunt. I went for preparing lunch.

I remember my sister once told me that every time she wished to do something personal she had to explore that potential moment to finish her work. And that so-called potential moment never becomes actual. So here I too was searching for that moment …

Oh !! moments were coming and going like river water where you cannot step twice, how can I grab the moment from Absolute time. It is not like one meter piece of cloth which I can buy from the shop. Here I was wrestling with time. Moments were slipping out of my hand… there was no escape from it and I, the fool, trying to catch that moment like catching the flying jet… and my attention was drawn to the spider on the wall.

My friends!! I understood that my so-called writing has come to end, I was struggling with spider web outside and inside with broom stick in my hand … I left no yawning gap and I just wanted to scream because the weight of these moments were immense!  

From far off distance I can hear… sweet resonance of sitar… Sahid Parvez playing Raga Bageshwari and Venktesh Kumar was singing Raga Bhimpalashi from the other side… That becomes the source of my strength… which made me invincible. I was not terrified of getting broken. The moment of uncertainty had gone when I created my own moment!!! At least I was survived― Kryptonite enters into my soul that emitted a peculiar radiation to weaken my deadly thought.

 No doubt I can hear only one of the notes at a time of the melody. Each note had a duration ...but its duration was without length. Duration-less-present makes the present moment impossible, though reflection led me to the conclusion that it must exist and that it does exist, can never be a fact of our immediate experience, it is really a sort of sophisticated illusion. It is therefore not a “knife edge, but a saddleback on which I sit… and… look in two directions into time.” The past has gone and no longer exists, and the future does not yet come, so that no point of time actually exists in which we can perceive the notes of our melody. … The notes of our melody are not joined together, but form part of a flow through time, so that the idea of succession is embedded in the experience as a relationship between the two notes. They were held in their context as part of the stream by the transitive flights, which create the relationships between them.

The transitive flights of a bird as it flows through the present moment to the next moment and to the next moment seamlessly…constant and continuous in spite of all resistance and pressure of the air. There is a nice and simple metaphor from Immanuel Kant “The light dove cleaving the air in free flight, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would have been easier in empty space, i.e.  air-less space.” This seeming paradoxical myth seeks to outwit the issue and I was wondering perhaps the air that provides resistance also sustains the dove’s flight. I am not using any difficult philosophical term. And hey!! I took a sudden leap from striking the match-stick quickly to see what the light looks like and probably give me meaning too.  Of course, one cannot have full access to the sequence until it is fully completed, and which can only be understood by transcending the moment.

In just a few moments I will embark on an expedition to start over …the mind collected the previous moments… from the storehouse, not vast enough to accommodate all moments. It was full for popping….The moments were gleaming like Constellations recorded in the coil …full of stars, the sky was full. I was thankful to these earlier moments, which seemed to me the gravitational pull, but now gave the impression of being the peak of emancipation― I can see just stars and dots until I fell twice on rough and weary moments racing inside me. These fuzzy moments were like endless traffic in crazy madness vis-à-vis to the sagacious threshold.

Good Heavens !! sister!! The hopeless quest for that moment which you were looking for the whole life, must be given up!!! We are tied together by our stories, our history…Tales which are woven through our ancestry. Each thing in its place is best. No doubt the universe is unfolding with infinite thread panning out in front of you, connecting to other vast tapestries of memories. A loose thread cannot be fixed once more, and the patterns will never be what you want them to be, savour each stitch…Take time on every thread…

And there was a blow !!! I survive the hardest time. I reflect on the insight and revelation of a moment. When grace gives me the piercing stare of certainty… the entangled visions… passionate depth transpiring… the symphony of light….glow. …And I start to write in a potential moment that rises out of the possible moments. The defining moment came― distilled from all my moments blended into one and was floating effortlessly along the moments ‘created’ by me…

 

 Words move, music moves
Only in time; move, music moves
Only in time;