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Obituary to an ordinary day in extraordinary times
As I wish the ordinary day goodbye, I also want to bury my bias and wrong sense of social distribution of the earth’s resources
Time, it seems, has no future. Homo sapiens suddenly woke up to a new reality after Circa 2020 dawned. One fine day, something happened just like in science fiction and the trajectory of time, and life, changed. Hence, this obituary to the disappearance of an ordinary day.
But how does one write an obituary to a day? How does one weave a eulogy of a time gone forever? Time is rapidly diminishing all around us and we humans with the largest brain are at our wits’ end as an uncertain future awaits us.
What were we really thinking in our longer, richer lives? Did we just stop one day to stare at the small hands begging, while we sat complaining in an air-conditioned car? Why am I asking difficult questions? Because I’m a singular being trying to pluck the courage and write an obituary to times gone by.
The great expectations attitude post-industrial revolution made human beings think life as 50-year investment bonds. We had no time on a beautiful ordinary day to think where we were going. The haves and have-nots were in a rush to eke out a life of desires.
But now, the ordinary day is dead. Our socio-political system may have to be buried with respect to the ordinary day. Authoritarian regimes and even democracies can morph into centralised governing bodies as we face more tragedies, deaths, loss of jobs and a sense of fierce uncertainty of another day. Our months could seem like centuries as we may face dehumanisation in the race to survive. Want will test us to the extreme.
As I wish the ordinary day goodbye, I also want to bury my bias and wrong sense of social distribution of the earth’s resources. I want the grave to accommodate my acceptance of huge inequalities in my earthly journey. I hang my head in shame that I let my voice, however small, diminish and disappear as I was too busy living the ordinary day. I became a slave to my lifestyle.
How many of the vulnerable and unfortunate were eliminated as it became normal? This century has witnessed the death of free speech and the freedom to dissent with the political system. No wonder our imagination stumbles beyond 2020.
History and time have changed in the last century. Two world wars; and if that was not enough, we armed ourselves with nuclear weapons. No one thought that we were self-sabotaging and destructing our beautiful “home” known as earth in the cosmos.
A small warm home with a sun, a moon, water to drink and air to breathe sufficed but greed was in our genes. Adam and Eve’s progeny could not resist messing up. Somehow, everything has changed with the demise of the ordinary day. Millions walking home remind me of the fallacy of life.
In its place, I don’t know if time will have a future for us. The era of hugs and wearing lipstick will come back to us, but when? Holding hands just for the heck of it; coffee at the crowded Indian Coffee House and the ruthless rhythm of living a life. The symphony of chaos but with your sad demise ordinary day, the new day being touted to us has a horrible cold name. It’s distance.
What will we morph into in two years and maybe in a decade? Till then, rest in peace my friend. We will all miss you. Get nostalgic and reminisce. Is there time for us and a future in time? There are honestly no answers.
The writer is a Kapurthala-based farmer and freelance contributor
