The many interpretations of waiting!

Today my husband and I were at an auditor's office. It wasn't crowded nor the work we had was something that required plenty of time. It should have been done in a couple of minutes. But no. We were made to wait for a very long time. It was then that this post struck me. Being made to wait is a sign of power. The longer a person is made to wait, the more important the person on the other side is. In India (I can't speak for any other country. If you have similar experience, please do share) everywhere one is made to wait. The person-in-charge will never commit to an exact time and if she/her does so, then invariably the time is delayed. An appointment is given only to prolong it. If one is asked to come on a particular day for getting some official papers, the papers aren't given until two days pass. Laziness? Power? I don't know. I am unable to put my finger on any one particular reason. But like the shit, dirt and squalor that you read about in the last post, we the citizens of India have grown accustomed to waiting and being denied the luxury of having everything done on time. So when we visit other countries, we are almost bedazzled!

My dear friend K, exclaims, "But the wait is part of India's epistolary tradition . . ." when we discuss our letters reaching each other at the earliest. We endlessly wait and perhaps that waiting has added that extra dash of pleasure for receiving hand-written letters. But can someone trust our postal system and write a love-letter to her/his friend? Who knows by the time the letter reaches the person, she or he might have fallen in love with someone else and even married him or her. Well, that's the waiting for letters.

Now, the waiting that many young ones profess to be doing: Waiting for Mr or Ms. Right! I hate to be the one to throw cold water on this belief like Sharmila Tagore did to Rajesh Khanna in the film Aradhana! The rights never exist, it only depends on us to settle down for someone who is an assortment of rights/lefts/wrongs and humour! Tell me, who is the right one after all. If the looks are good, the thoughts are creepy, if the thoughts are good, then the education is not okay. Finally if everything is good, the person is already taken! Well, the wait is not actually a wait, it is foolishness.

So, in India, we end up waiting for many things and if one calculates the time that we have waited for everything, it would be a good number and in that time we would have done many other wonderful things - like wasting spending time on Facebook, repinning inspirational quotes and smiling buddhas, checking what blog posts have appeared in the dashboard and so on.

Sometimes even the internet booting makes you wait. Well, one can always check stuff in the mobile until then.

So, dear reader what have you waited for?

Image: Internet

What lies JUST IN FRONT

When sloth determines our actions and words, we do the most funniest of things. And these actions are funny not to the doer but to the observer. My friend, let's call her Z, always has the habit of picking the clothes that are right in front of her, in the cupboard. She never finds it necessary to look thoroughly for other clothes that are neatly folded inside. She just picks the one that is in front of her. This could be said of undergarments too. What is arranged in the contact position of the eye is the one that is immediately picked.

I have observed this trait when men buy vegetables and fruits. When I say men, I am of course generalising. Not all men have this trait. Well, . . .. Men tend to pick the veggies that are just in front of them unlike women who dig through the basket and look for the 'good' ones.

My students!!! How can I possibly forget them. Any assignment or any essay BANG, they go to Google and pick the very first link, which ultimately happens to be the great Wikipedia. And when that 'wikipedia' essay comes to me, I promptly mark PLAGIARISM and ask them to revise the same with an original analysis.

This habit also talks of something else. The act of complacently picking what is RIGHT THERE. If only one digs deeper, there could be the possibility of getting better things. I can understand that on certain days, one is too lazy to look for better clothes hence, selecting something which is right there in front.

Similarly, when one is not too bothered to cook food, every food item that is readily available on the table is eaten, and the person in turn, gains a lot of extra calories.

So the key word is time here. Lack of time, zest and interest paves way for picking up something which is right in front. The extra step to find out if there are better options is usually overlooked.

Well, are we grabbers of what we see in front of us or are we diggers of the unseen.

Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Internet