Summer holidays are here and Ruhani’s joy knows no bounds. She, being raised in a sophisticated environment of a modern city, loves the idea of going to her Dadi’s village, where she feels like her true self.
The chirping of the birds to wake her up in the mornings, lots of natural light all around the verandah, Dadi’s favourite mantra playing on the repeat mode in her not so new smart phone and so many other little beautiful things that make her heart sing along. Her innocence keeps making Dadi fall in love with her. Ruhani loves to play with other children in the vast shadows of the trees.
And then comes the favourite time of Ruhani, to listen to Dadi-made stories before going to bed. Sitting in her grandmother’s lap, Ruhani simply loves the way Dadi explains things to her.
Today’s topic comes out to be Time. In her beautiful way of engaging children, Dadi first asks Ruhani what does she understand about time. Ruhani smiles and says “Sure enough I know some things about time. I know the clock shows 1 pm when the school bell rings off. I see 5 pm when I can go downstairs and play with my friends.”
Suddenly with her eyes becoming sad and her voice going low, she says, “Dadi, I understand some more things about it. Mummy & papa do not have time for each other and they do not have time for me as well.”
Dadi is not estranged about these things but she brings Ruhani back in excitement by assuring her that Dadi got all her time for her little angel. Ruhani gets curious and ask Dadi to tell her something more about time.
Dadi waves her fingers through Ruhani’s soft hair and starts explaining. She tells her that time has different definitions for different kinds of people. For some people, they have just divided it into 2 categories: Good and Bad. These kind of people believe in destinies. So whatever happens to them, they like to call it their destiny and that it was already written.
Some people are always busy in categorizing their time in three ways: Past, Present and Future. These people are multitalented; they use their Present time in using their right and left brains in an interesting way, where their right part always stays in Past : rolling the same movie over and again about the thing that has happened , why it happened and how it happened and the left part in calculating their Future : where they see everything in numbers, 2 years – 1 car, 5 years – 1 big house, 10 years – 1 crore and 20 years – 20 diseases. Ruhani starts to laugh loudly.
Dadi realizes that she is being complex for the little girl. So she continues explaining the real value of time. She makes her understand that Time is something which keeps on going, it has got its own pace and never waits or stops for anyone. It is precious as a diamond if you spend it wisely or it easily slips out of your hands. It is an opportunity to make things or break things for your future. It is a journey with no specific destination. It is infinite in itself but not for anyone else. It is a great teacher for the ones who want to learn and a great healer for the ones who want to be healed. It teaches you the very same thing, never stop in your life for any reason, keep on going, keep on moving and moreover never Stop just because others want you to.
