Moments, Tme and Memories ...

Moments, Tme and Memories ...

It was around eight in the evening yesterday when cheerful voices of children from the garden below our building drifted into our home. Curious, I looked down from the window.

It was a familiar sight.

This was the very garden where I had once brought my little son on many evenings. Inside was the play area and just outside stood the merry-go-round and a few simple rides that had delighted generations of children. 

A few days ago, I had noticed the man who operated those rides. Like me, he had also aged silently while the playground remained almost unchanged, welcoming one childhood after another.

Time truly is the most fleeting element in our lives. When I think of my son's childhood, it feels as though it happened only yesterday. Yet when I look at him now tall, confident and grown into a young man, I realise how many years have quietly slipped by. Time did not announce its departure. It simply moved on while I was busy trying to cope with life in the best way possible. 

Looking back on life, my mind is overcrowded with thoughts. Should I have done things differently? Could I have been more patient? Could I have listened more? Should I have worried less and laughed more? Had I been a good parent? These include the hundred ifs and buts which keep returning to us when we look back on life. But perhaps life's nature is like that.

There is an old saying that, after the event, even a fool is wise. Hindsight does give us a clarity which seemed impossible in the middle of the moment. What we call experience is often nothing more than wisdom earned after making mistakes, carrying burdens and learning from consequences.

The challenge is that life offers no retakes.

Unlike a stage play, there are no rehearsals. Unlike a film, there are no second takes. Every conversation, every decision, every opportunity and every relationship unfolds in real time. Once a moment has passed, it can never be erased and just becomes memory.

That is why the present deserves our fullest attention. Life resembles a game of cards. Instead of regretting about yesterday or trying to  predict tomorrow, we should simply strive to play today's game with sincerity, courage and kindness.

None of us can choose the cards which are dealt to us.  Some of us are blessed with privilege; others have to face many hardships. Some enjoy good health; others have to battle illness. Some inherit opportunities; others must create them through relentless effort.

Yet the outcome will not be determined by the cards we have in our hands, but how wisely we play them. A skilled player can win with ordinary cards because of patience, judgement and resilience. Another, holding aces and every apparent advantage, can lose everything through arrogance, stubborness, haste or poor decisions.

Life follows the same principle. We cannot rewrite the past, but we can allow it to refine us rather than imprison us. Experience should be a guiding lamp that gives lights instead of becoming a chain that keeps us tied to yesterday.

As these thoughts floated through my mind, I continued to watch the children in the garden. Just like my son one child was insisting for one last ride. His mother humoured him by agreeing. Years from now, neither of them will remember whether it was the third ride or the fourth. But both may remember that evening, the laughter, the simple joy and the feeling of being together. Life is not built on extraordinary milestones but on thousands of such ordinary evenings which become extraordinary. So parents standing nearby were creating memories they may not fully observe or appreciate today. Years from now, perhaps they too would stand at a window, hear the laughter of another generation and wonder where the years disappeared.

That is the quiet rhythm of life.The playground remains. The children change. The parents grow older. Time keeps moving.

As darkness slowly settled over the garden, the children reluctantly made their way home. The merry-go-round stopped. Silence returned. I looked on from the window. The playground had given me more than memories. It had given me a perspective.

Time does not disappear in dramatic leaps but slips away quietly, disguised as ordinary evenings, familiar conversations, shared meals, bedtime stories, silent prayers and children's laughter. We rarely recognise those moments as extraordinary while we are living them. Only later do we realise they were the moments that truly mattered.

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson time teaches us. We cannot return to yesterday and play a better innings. We cannot reshuffle the cards we were dealt but we can play today's hand with greater wisdom because yesterday taught us how to play better. And isn't that enough? 

R. Vimala, IAS Retd.  

Maharashtra Cadre, 2009 Batch

Former Resident Commissioner & Secretary, Government of Maharashtra

Founder, AnirvedShakti Foundation

PhD Research Scholar, Centre for Policy Studies, IIT Bombay