Thursday, May 15, 2008

THE ENDLESS WAIT ✍️


Some years ago, when I was in my Final Year of college, I remember reading a play by Samuel Beckett called ‘Waiting for Godot’. It was a text that we had to study, as part of the English Literature course, in the Third Year. 

The play was a tragicomedy, because it was 'about everything and about absolutely nothing', at the same time. It had two central characters Estragon and Vladimir, who were simply waiting endlessly, for someone called Godot, and it presented, everything that goes on between them, during that long wait.

It just made me wonder about, how we spend so much of our life 'Waiting', just like Vladimir and Estragon:
- waiting for a bus or a train
- waiting to see the result of something, that we’ve started out doing or attempted
- waiting to see the reactions of people, to something we’ve said or done
- waiting for the arrival of loved ones
- waiting for certain sad or troublesome people or situations, to pass.

Living in a country like ours, with a population that’s just bubbling over, we can’t help but 'wait our turn', for just about everything. We’re always standing in queues, and there’re always some impatient ones, who try to jump those queues; much to the exasperation, of all those who are braving the heat and the sweat, as they hold on, to their last strand of patience. 

We grumble and complain, about having to wait; and still, we can’t really do very much about it. It is a fact of life, that we just learn to accept.

While 'waiting' is mostly thought of, as being rather painful, there are also times when waiting for something, can fill a person with a blend of feelings like joy, longing, apprehension, expectation, and so on. 

On the one hand, you have the nervousness and anxiety among students, as they wait for the outcome of an examination; and on the other hand, you have the exhilarating feelings of a pregnant woman, waiting patiently for nine long months, to give birth to her little bundle of joy. 

While a child, is always longing to grow up; a person who has lived a long life, awaits the day, when he or she will pass from this world.
 
Life itself, has been turned into 'One Endless Waiting Room'.🤷 

'Waiting' is certainly a part and parcel of life itself. It is something we can’t do without; and yet sometimes, I feel that in this whole process of 'waiting for what is to come', we kind of 'miss out on the present'. We miss out on the beauty and ecstasy of the moment, because we’re always preoccupied, with what is going to happen in the future. 

So, I just wonder at times, whether it would ever be possible for us, to live our lives, enjoying every moment as it comes; without bothering about what the future holds in store for us, without concentrating on what lies ahead. ✍️

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