Those winter mornings

I grew up in a very small village. There were only 5 houses and not many people as you can imagine. After my primary schooling was done, I moved to another village which was equally smaller.

25 years ago, winters used to be harsher; summers, not as hotter. Sometimes, when other kids were not in the village, my mornings would be filled with utter silence with no one to play. I would sit on the portico under the warm sunlight of December-Janaury with nothing to do or some times, a daily to read. There was no TV, no mobile phone, no other gadget to play with. Elders would not have time to play in the mornings. When did they have, anyway?

If I close my eyes and sit now, I can still remember those times, the feeling, the silence. Suddenly, someone's mixi would make a 'royyynnn' sound and stop and come back to life again. A far away voice would shout out for someone and die down echoing through the canopy of areca plantations. A lowing of a cow, a bawl of a calf, cooing of pigeons or chirping of sparrows would be the only sounds I would hear in otherwise quiet mornings. A couple of sparrows would bring dry blades of grass and thin branches from somewhere and try to build a nest on our ceiling. There would errupt some argument between them about the place or manner in which it is being built. And then again, all the sound would die down putting a blanket of quietness to whole atmosphere.

I would lean on to a wall on the portico and watch our garden as the sun shone on the mist. Those little droplets on grass and folwers look like there was a galaxy of tiny little stars just a arm's distance away. Have you seen those spider webs covered with mist when sun rays fell on them? Winters are supposed to be that way, aren't they? Chillness should travel through your spine and make you curl up and sit in the sunlight. I don't remember when was the last time I took my sweater out and wore it.

As a kid, I remember sitting on the portico or in the garden in front of our house for long hours, doing nothing, getting warmer under the winter sun. An army of ants would be on a mission to somewhere. I would take a blade of grass and put it in their way and wonder "what would they do now?". How long has it been since I spent such quiet, doing-nothing time? How long has it been since YOU spent such times? A phone would beep or a vehicle would pass by or you would remember that you had to do something important before you could sit for 5 minutes straight. Or, even if you sat like that, doing nothing, someone would ask "why are you sitting like that? What happened? Is everything OK?". It is as though we have made a rule that every waking second should be accounted for. Like we are going to submit a timesheet even for our personal hours. As though God would shout at us "Hey human! why was this 10-minute spent doing nothing? Don't you know time is limited? Weren't there any important things to do?"

Why "doing nothing" is frowned upon? Shouldn't we all be doing the "doing-nothing" at least for some time every day? Not meditation, not pranayama. Just sit and do nothing. Let the thoughts flow. You don't control them, don't direct them. Just be as though you are watching a movie, a spectator of your own thoughts, sort of. Watch the drama unfold.

After the secondary schooling, I moved to a small town and then to a bigger town and to a city for work. Lived in different cities, different places and houses. But, whenever I go to a terrace at night and look around to find tall structrures as far as my eyes can see, I get this very strange feeling that "I don't belong here". This feeling is not new, it has been with me since I moved to town and to cities. It's like being lost amidst a million human beings. I ask myself, "what am I doing here?"

I haven't got the answer yet. Don't know whether I will ever. There is something with these terraces that probably make me feel I should go back to villages. But,are those villages still the same? Do they have that silence, that quietness which they used to? Haven't COVID made sure that every one of them got the internet and with it all the distractions of the world?