Time Keeper

I always cherish the fond remembrances of my childhood days. We usually hear from all those renowned celebrities who give interviews in television, that they had a very colourful childhood which always had a mango orchard at the backyard of their house, lot of festivals, fun-filled days with lots and lots of cousins etc etc. My intention is not to question any of those recollections, but to stay with mine. I never had a house filled with cousins and never had such pampering during festivals. But, my childhood had been really good as far as I am concerned. If not a mango orchard, I too had the privilege of climbing atop all the known and unknown trees in our backyard to my heart’s content. As I had mentioned earlier, I stayed with my grandparents since my parents were away with their govt jobs. It was a world consisting of myself, my grandfather (an ex-service man from the royal british army) and my grandmother (a retd school teacher). Initially I did attribute both of their commitment to time to their oft-reminded professional lives, but soon did I realize that not just my grandparents, but the entire town was conspicuously serious about one thing, ie time.

Now, coming to the thought which provoked me to sit and write. There was this strange sound which echoed in the whole locality, twice daily. While questioned, I was enlightened with the name of this sound – siren. Puzzled to the core, I always wanted to see this monster who used to cry twice every day, at the same time. Like we heard from John Wheeler that ‘time is what prevents everything from happening at once’, I had to wait for many many days to see this guy who always shouted, keeping an alarm. I never realized how many days, I had this question of ‘who’, but one day, I had the rare chance to see him. That day I had accompanied my grandfather to see some guy called ‘counsellor’ at the town’s municipal office. While we were there, this ‘siren’ fellow started shouting. And, it was like deafening! I knew he was somewhere near and ran out of the old big municipal building. Thus I had spotted him, on top of a small elevated column, rested a black coloured, stupid looking creature. Wow, I gasped, as this thing could make such big noise! Now, my question had been ‘why any of these guys never bothered to make this guy silent, even after he repeated his shrieks day after day, that too at the same time!!

Years passed and in the mean time I realized the soberness of this monster. I did realize that it was made to shout everyday at 10AM and 5PM, so that the small town people realize time. When I first heard about this, it didn’t make much sense to me. Why should somebody shout at all the people, that too twice daily, just for a time-check? As always, I accounted this also to the craziness of the older generation, who took things too much to heart. But, slowly, as I observed around me, I found the value of this time-keeper. Everyone in the town, seem to realize that it was start of day and end of day when they heard these ‘sirens’. We all rushed to school, if we hear the morning siren, since we were sure that we will miss the ‘assembly’ in case of any more delay en-route. Not that we had any special concern for the assembly, but if not present by then, what awaited ahead was a guided march to the head master’s room followed by forced apologies from all of us, culprits!

Leaving us, the children, insignificant lot, who doesn’t care about time, I saw the world around me, rushing at hearing the morning siren. Men and women flocked to offices, restaurant owner Pappu Pillai Chettan ensured that his ‘today’s special’ board is displayed outside prominently, Ice stick vendor Rajan made sure of his attendance in front of the school gate etc etc. And, come evening, the siren going aloud meant that our after-school play hours at the school compound was over. We all rushed back home and on the way I could see that the world too rushed to get back home. The only people who used to rush out from their homes were Madathil Swamy and Kochucherukkan. Swamy always rushed to our nearby temple since he is the priest and need to make arrangements for the evening deparadhana. Kochucherukkan (I still wonder how his parents named him so! My first memoris about him is with all white hair and he had grandchildren) had been the caretaker (kaikkaran) of our church and he need to open the church for evening prayers. The point here is, at the evening siren, while these two gentlemen rushed out from their homes, the entire remaining population of the town hurried to get back home. Wow, what an effect, this ‘siren’ guy had!!

Thereafter, everything was almost same routine. The entire town took bath, said their prayers at dusk, had early dinner and went to bed early. It looked to me as if the town always woke up early and awaited for the ‘siren’ to get busy for the day and longed for the ‘siren’ again to sound, to wind up the day. Everything was simple, everybody was un-sophisticated and it was calm and quiet life. People found time to stop and talk to the passerby’s, visit neighbours and celebrate together for all festivals. After all, I believed, all were disciplined and guided by the ‘Siren’ monster.

Now, years further, as I sit here in the hustle-bustle of the city, at the comfort of my home, enjoying a lazy weekend, I feel – we all miss this ‘siren’ in our life. While we are flooded with lot of time-keepers around us – timepiece, mobile phone reminders, outlook/lotus pop-ups – we miss a time-check which guides us. Which ask us to start the day, get busy and also to end the day and get back home. We miss that monster which makes the entire town busy and which makes them relaxed. What we are left with is only reminders, making us conscious even while sleeping, that something or other is awaiting to be completed. While our days extend further and further to make nights look like a wink, we forget the time-keepers. No, I am not going to the oft-repeated topic of city life chaos. Me too enjoy this flow of life in this modern world. But, deep inside me, there is still that small-towner who liked to avoid all this rush. Maybe, this inherent feeling is what making me to avoid my travels as far as possible from the ‘rush hour’, when everyone in the traffic is in standstill!!

FootNote : Sometime back, on one of my visits to my town, while driving past the municipal office, I looked for that old black coloured monster. Neither he was there nor the building remained the same as earlier. Maybe, he too would have realized that his voice no longer remained as a welcome time-check but could be a cranky disturbance in the flow of today’s life. And I understood the meaning within the quote - ‘The years teach much which the days never know’