THE INVENTION OF A 6:30
An old milk maid used to come to our home every day at 6:30 in the morning. She was what she did. She was a 6:30. Every day, whether the weather be hot or whether the weather be cold, she would be there at 6:30. She was old and withered but strong – she carried an old milk can – old and withered but strong. It carried what it had - Milk. She got us milk - alone and persistent, everyday. She became what she did every day. She became a 6:30. She became the calling bell that buzzed aloud everyday whether the weather be …or whether the weather be… she became the old droning voice – kind, interactive and patient. She became the old woman who brought us milk. She had no name. She had no identity but for the work she did, everyday.
I used to look at her - at her eyes. They would seem to smile, grin and laugh. I understood those very expressions. To me, she became what she was not. I saw ‘us’ through her. To her, we were what she was not. We were just, yet another 6:30, in an array of so many 30s in her monotonous cline. We were not defined by our work or our actions. We were what we paid her and what we received from her. We were the milk that she gives. We were the money that she receives. And we were just one among many.
She was an old milk maid. She was what she did and we invented her.
3 comments:
another good one....
predicament of all of us...Times are tough man.. we all will be defined by what we do... names or even numbers in a company register... pages of completed work... an item in the salary sheet...
There is certainly a more-than-necessary hype about tourist spots. For the religious, it is either Mecca, Jerusalem or Varanasi. For others, it is The Taj Mahal and so on. More than anything else, social pressure seems to be the only aspects that drives people towards these tourist spots. If you haven't been to Agra or Thanjavur or Paris, it seems to be a matter of shame among one's friends.
Who knows, a hundred years from now, they might create a lot of hype about our "coffee shop" in Loyola College where we only used to talk gibberish as a place where the greatest ideas of the century were born.
Hai
I found it to be too simple, could have problematised a bit, but enjoyed reading.
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