Just a minute

I lay on the bed sideways with my arms twisted to muff that nagging pain. I realized that the light was still on and sheer laziness forced me to mentally shut it out of the system. It happened then.

I found myself staring at the bedside alarm clock. Initially it was difficult, It was grindingly slow. I found myself listening to the dogs, howl, laugh, cry, howl and whine. Never a bark. I heard the heavy chugs of a passing goods train. I heard the farsi chatter of my Iranian neighbors and there I was wondering how long did a minute actually last.

Slowly all thoughts faded away and my eyes rotated along with the unhurried, purposeful movement of the second hand. The methodical tick-tock had me mesmerized. I felt as if the floor in my brain gave away hurtling to abyss all that junk I cart around. I don’t even remember what time that alarm clock showed.

Then there was silence. A silence that just said tick-tock. There was nothing ever more silent than the tick-tock that I had experienced before. “How can a clock be silent ?”, one might be tempted to ask. Silence is a factor of the mind and not the ears.

The minutes passed on until I woke up from this wide eyed stupor with a start. The 5.00 a.m. alarm chimed loud and electronic. I shut it out and went back to my thoughts. There was none. I just felt empty up there and totally peaceful. I even forgot that nagging pain on my left arm.

The first thing I wondered was, “How long exactly is a minute ?”

A minute is what it feels when you spend hours with someone. Say friends over nice whisky and succulent kebabs talking politics. Or someone really really nice discussing mundane details of a life that can be. A minute is what it takes to read Saki’s exciting ten pages introduction on early feudalism in India and the Lingayat movement. A minute is what it takes to realize how badly screwed up this world is right now.

It takes an hour on the other hand to get a parking slot in brigade road. It takes an hour to step up those few inches between you and your certain someone all the while talking inconsequential things which you and the other person aren’t even aware off. It sure does take an hour to watch one dry gaudy episode of Kyonki Saanski Bahuki Maki Jai (One of those obnoxious Hindi soaps running for like 756th episode). I had to do this while baby sitting “saumya” my niece while “Shradha” my cousin sat hypnotized in front of the tube.

It took just a minute for sandy to smile, learn a new word, try it out and practice a few uppercuts on poor uncle.

That’s when it struck like a thunderbolt. “A minute is a concept and not a quantum”

So here we are folks, What do you think ? Did it take a minute ?