Thursday, September 01, 2016

On Waiting

Mumbai, like many cities can brutally delay you, or keep you waiting for someone. Waiting frustrates, angers and annoys. Often, people think of waiting as killing time. In order that one is in better control of emotions, it is best to make peace with and find strategies to tackle the stretched time of waiting. The notion of "killing" time, and the   negative connotation it carries is a problem of capitalistic thinking. We are often not sure of or not prepared about what to do in this unwanted, undecided period of unsure length. Most of us cannot come up with anything creative to fill up this void...this leads to the feeling of unproductiveness, worthlessness and waste.

Ofcourse, all these feelings are legitimate. I am talking of a scenario when you are waiting free of meeting a deadline to catch a cinema show, reach a meeting or go for an event. These moments are ofcourse frustrating because there's something at stake - sometimes monetarily, sometimes intellectually, sometimes commitment wise.  But when the purpose is just to wait, should we be equally frustrated?

Dreamers and wanderers perhaps may love waiting. Edgar Allen Poe in one of his pieces describes of waiting at a coffee shop just looking at people passing by, when later he follows a stranger cutting across the city, thus deciphering a new city. But here, Poe is merely waiting for thoughts to occur to him. His wait is not for a real physical person. If although, people were considered to be thoughts that float to you, could the experience of waiting be less frustrating?

People like the ones mentioned above may find such pockets of time and weird geographic settings inspiring for constructing thoughts. This doesn't guarantee that the real geography might be apparent in the works produced in such moments. New awkward geographies suspend dreamers in unimagined thought pools. These thought pools emerge out of an un-orchestrated chemistry of events and actors - phenomena quite opposite to what they employ in their work. The reflection on and in such new environments may give rise to interesting readings.

Although the realisation of the  temporal existence of the "waiter" or the person waiting in these new geographies may bring these readings to the limit of boredom. If long waits end well, the worth of wait is appreciated. However if waiting ends in futility, it can lead to loss of faith in the person and the very act of waiting. Waiting may not necessarily be physically comfortable, it may be exhausting. Extended waits may tire you physically, leading you to an irritable mood to enjoy the moment you were actually meant to meet for. A tired body cannot enjoy the happiest of moments. Such a contradictory experience of waiting constructs frustration.

The experience of slippage of time is different in different places. Cities might accentuate the feeling of loss of time. Relatively, waiting in smaller, slower places for even shorter time may give an illusion of a long wait. However, more often than not, it's about the mental preparedness to waiting. If you have already considered that you might need to wait, looking at the overall factors neutrally - including weather, traffic, nature of the person, etc., you will be able to negotiate the frustration that comes with it. If you find yourself waiting really unexpectedly and for long, you really need to make up the decision of the worth of wait. We will make mistakes - but over time, get better at dealing with the feeling of crisis that comes with waiting.

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