Anti Clock-wise

What is it that I hear about time management?
Now, I couldn't do that if I were backwards bent
Whoever believed that they can manage time
Meant not yours or mine, nor the general chime.

These people, they set their watches five minutes fast
So they can arrive early, still barely closer than the last
They add in advance and pretend not to subtract
Trying frantically to deny the math and obscure a fact

The noise from their houses, it's no false alarm
For their spouses and neighbours, it works like a charm
They came screaming into the world on their very first day
And want to re-live the experience in much the same way

They write what they need to do and order them neatly
Hitting one by one with vigour and march across swiftly
Their delight growing and shrinking in inverse proportion
To the length of their duties and task allocation

Every now and then they do stop and significantly pause
If only to log their achievements and further their cause
Sometimes they can hardly count or accurately remember
All the things that they have done over lost hours of slumber

Some of their time is specially christened as "quality"
The rest of it I suppose being at any rate a rarity
With care and concern they skillfully orchestrate
Taking care to enact what they believe to be sure fate

It's no wonder I am tired of the same story, same mime
The one about the hectic swirling non-stop life of time
Now, as for me, it may not be much or with excitement, rife
But would you blame me for preferring the time of my life?

The identity of a peace-monger

Yesterday was a big day at my campus. The good professor and Nobel laureate Dr. Sen was here to give his opinions on how identities contribute to violence and how we can turn them around to enrich our lives. It was very reassuring to hear age-old wisdom and Cambridge-style civilised humor. It's the stuff we can only watch on PBS these days. He seemed to truly believe (as in his recent book Identity and Violence: The illusion of destiny) that understanding how to live with multiple identities rather than a singular bull-headed recognition of ourselves as belonging to any one faction (religious, cultural or otherwise) and learning how to make a context-based choice of what identity gains superiority over others was the way to cleverly avoid violence.

Seems tangible enough but a tad idealistic. As they say "There are no atheists in fox-holes", I very much doubt there are any intellectuals either. (Mostly these are the same people). The call for the day seems to be to actively incorporate the learning, somehow somewhere, that it is not enough just to make a choice but to make that choice that will lead to least conflict within and amongst ourselves.

Perhaps what we need is peace schools...

Falling in love with Fall

I have a theory that you can tell the nature of people by their love of seasons. Of course I am completely wrong and I hate Linda Goodman. Nevertheless, here goes.

Summer folks are jolly and fun and don't mind a hard day's work if it makes them dirty and if the end of the day means a chill at the beach. Winter people are stylish and brooding and can put up with the mess of life like it were their mission on earth. Spring people generally notice everything around them and want desperately to communicate it to someone. Fall people are dreamy and believe in the gentle mysteries of life.

I am a fall person. I love the fact that dead things can look beautiful and colourful. The flowers despite their best efforts cannot match the melancholy of the fall colors in all their tastefully fading shades. It is as if the leaves sent one last challenge and silently withered with dignity, without the jumpy sparkly ado of summer blossoms.

Above all I love fall for its uniqueness. In all the other seasons something new comes in, in the place of something old. Winter brings in snow, spring brings in flowers, summer brings new leaves in the branches. Fall is the only season which brings nothing new and yet 'changes' what exists ultimately leading to the last breath of life.

No more chance of redemption.

It was easier to do my taxes than set this blog up...