Wait A Second?

The Art of Waiting

The only painting we paint without an actual canvas beneath it, an unsung song forever on our lips. The only dance we don't groove our bodies to, it is the

The art of waiting and we just wait.

 Sounds absurd but hear (or maybe read) me out for a second.

With technology, and the notion of "quick" service practically enveloping us, touching every nook and corner of our lives, practically everything's one call away, in such a scenario- if you're waiting for something,

how? In fact, why are you waiting?

Life's supposed to be this roller coaster of emotions, where we are constantly engaged with something- meaningful, in search of fleeting moments of serotonin. Things that add value to our daily pursuits, but look closer and you'll understand life's an extended act of waiting. Yes. 

Not alluding to the momentary ( or not so) periods of waiting in lines or at shops, it's beyond that, trust me I've noticed and after some careful thinking, It's like a constant companion, following us but we aren't aware of him, rather we avoid it as much as we can, forgetting the fact that somewhere we live through him.

He believes in omnipresence, it's everywhere- from waiting for your warm morning coffee to cool down before you drown in the bliss of the first sip, waiting for its warm aroma to embrace you as it trickles down your throat and lights up those synapses in your head and you can finally declare you're awake- alive ready to take on whatever the day throws at you (okay too much about coffee).

You wait for the locals to cross the long stations on your way to work, crossing every bridge, river, and lake and taking you to your destination, while your eyes can scan the wide empty city of dreams filled with lost men and buildings and sometimes trees-you wait for it to cross over.

You wait for exams to start and to get over, so that you can get back to the daily routine without really worrying about writing another ruthlessly long paper while your back cries out for dear life ( will never miss the school benches.) 

 You wait for your dream vacation, plan out the tiny details, listing out and dreaming of all the places you'll visit and all the things you'll do, and after its done, the memories made, phone galleries filled- while your scroll through the happy pictures, you wait for another one.

You wait, for the doorbell to ring and for Baba to get done with work and come back home, he gets hot jalebis on the way back, the ones you love, for Mumma to ask you how your day was or to just hold you and listen when you ain't feeling the best. You wait to actually grow up, (although what you realize after growing up is a whole different story),

You wait for friends to call, to plan another weekend before Monday knocks on your door and you have to wait five more days to "live" again.

You wait for the uncle at the canteen to finally take your order, for your cab to arrive, for the microwave to beep, for the sale to start, for the lecture to end, for the movie to release, for the treadmill to finally hit your goal , to get into a party and then get out of it when once your social battery gives up, for letters to arrive (or texts, let's face it five years of letter writing in schools was a mere formality.), for summers to end and when the rains get out of hand we'll wait for autumns to brace us. We wait for sunsets, some days the sunrise, and at times for the clouds to steer clear of the moon's way. 

We wait and we wait, or is that actually living? quite a crossroad isn't it?

Now comes the unrest, the inability to stop, to find that one missing piece in this 1000-piece puzzle, with only 999 pieces in it- meaning we won't ever stop waiting. Sounds silly- maybe another whimsical thought this is. 

We rarely are actually present somewhere, we once waited to be in. Reminds me of something Jane Austen said,

 "Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings. To get somewhere in life and then somewhere else from that point on, like a pebble thrown at a stagnant lake, it keeps sliding on the lucid waters until it's nowhere, ripples all around. Persistently traveling, both physically and mentally from one station to another- or perhaps there is no end of the line, we live forever through waiting?