For Once…Silence Was Disturbing!

SLICE OF LIFE: Let us keep our mobiles aside and learn to live in the moment with our near and dear ones.

I woke up a little late than my usual time.  I had to skip my breakfast in order to reach on time for my appointment with a renowned artist whom I had to interview. I left my house gulping down just a glass of warm turmeric water (which I consume the first in the morning without fail). 

After I wrapped up the interview around 11 am, constant hunger pangs left me with no option but to enter a newly opened restaurant very close to where I reside. Like any other modern joints, the place was decked up with all the possible artifacts and designer furniture. Enough space between two tables to have a conversation at decent decibels and yet not heard by the person sitting at the adjacent one.

Just two tables were occupied, leaving me enough choice to select one. I had hardly browsed through the menu and I saw a group of young boys and girls enter followed by a family of six. Now the restaurant was almost full, owing to its smaller size only a table was vacant now. Seeing all this, I thought to myself whether I had done the right thing entering here as this place was now going to be nothing less than a market place. I prefer a quiet place and now seem to have thrown at the other end.

I was wrong. Yes! For the first time I was disturbed not by the noise but by silence. Everyone had placed their orders and were completely engrossed into their cellphones. Some were displaying their new found culinary skills of typing (better understood as chatting) as fast as they were eating. Even the family of six with two school going kids had nothing to exchange but in between smiles and gestures while each one doing something or the other with their cellphones. Needless to say, college crowd had many selfie experts but none spoke more than a syllable at a time.

Have we become so much addicted to gadgets that we have totally forgotten to enjoy the moment? Are interactions going to be only on mobiles and not the way we used to chit-chat when we were out with our friends? In most of the libraries we find the board…KEEP SILENCE, AS SILENCE IS GOLDEN. It is put up because those in the library are expected to be engrossed into reading and should not be disturbed by sound of our voice. And here I was totally disturbed seeing the bunch of individuals who had come out with companions not uttering a word leaving me to read their minds.

It’s time we realize the value of interacting with our loved ones while we are spending our quality time with them. Enjoy every moment being with each other, save it in your memory and not that of your phone.  No device should control that moment meant only and only for you and your near and dear ones. For once…that SILENCE WAS DISTURBING.

SLICE OF LIFE

Amidst New Year resolutions, The Free Press Journal's Sunday supplement 'Weekend' brings to you SLICE OF LIFE, a new column by me that makes an attempt to understand the most complicated thing in life…LIFE itself.

Don’t PUSH…just SLIDE!

By Sumeet Naik

New Year is finally here. 365 days at our disposal to make plans and to decide on how this year is going to be. But give it a thought, we got same amount of days in the year gone by. On the very first day then too we chalked out several plans we wanted to carry out. What Happened? How much did we really follow and execute? We often say there is no need to dwell upon past, we must look into the future. How can we make our future be it plans or experiences secure and memorable ones unless we remember and correct our mistakes from the past. In this context, the year gone by becomes of primary importance as it is the immediate past for all of us who have planned something new and big in this year.

As you read, six days have already gone by. What did you do in these six days for the year you have planned? Take a pause…give it a thought. How much time we really gave to some of our tasks cut off for every single day? Very often we make some plans in our mind and end up doing something which has no connection at all to what we had planned. Let not happen this with you in the coming 359 days.

As we know that eating at regular intervals little by little is anytime better than gulping down food in huge quantity at one single go. It helps digestion. Similarly, do not plan for too much on one single day. Plan something very simple, giving much required breather to execute it to perfection. We all have this nature of multitasking and boasting about how much we did on one single day.

People find great joy in listening to talks or reading stuff which starts or says…Push Yourself! Why should you push, the very term push indicates either you were defunct (like a broken car which needs a push) or you are forcing yourself do something which you did not want to do from deep within. NO… please don’t push yourself…rather slide smoothly into carrying out your tasks with broad smile on your face and determination to complete it on that single day.

Though we have wished everyone Happy New Year, the year gone by too had its happy moments. Even if someone had a very bad experience or huge personal loss, there must have surely been certain moments which brought in some amount of joy or happiness in the year gone by. This year too is going to be the same mix bag of sorrow and happiness. There will be those wow moments as well as those not so wow moments. So be it. For our expectations to turn into reality what matters are our actions.  Keep them simple and do not stress. This year do not get torn between contrast thoughts like…small things matter, but bigger is always better. So, don’t PUSH just SLIDE!