by
Saalik Siddikki
The
digitalized era has deprived us of many small and simple fascinations
that we used to enjoy till four five decades ago. One of the
enthralments was a rhythmic tick . . . . tick . . . . tick of pendulum
clocks.
When I was about 6 and, being the only child of my
parents, also was all alone in the house to play with my toys, I was
not allowed to go out to play with the street kids for longer periods.
So, I fell victim to indulging in my own world of fantasies.
And
most probably that was the only reason that I got into the habit of
deep thinking, creative visualization and self-talking. I read about
these subjects in the fourth decade of my life that, quite
interestingly, became my favourite subjects for study and practice.
To
be very fair, these three subconsciously developed habits have always
played a vital role in saving me from mental collapse on numerous
occasions.
Sometimes, I wanted to take down the clock to
put it among my characterized toys to watch them closely. I never
expressed this kiddish desire to my step mother for fear of admonition.
I
had created characters of my own choice; both friends and rivals except
the clock. It never occurred to me to tag it with some name like the
toys. It remained as something very special, beyond fabricated
relations that I had with my army of toys.
I remember that
my mother would say ‘Look at the clock, when it strikes the hour, your
play-time, outdoor, would end.’ I still recall subconsciously
visualizing the clock's hands moving to the set time and surprisingly I
mostly returned home without inquiring about time from anyone passing by
us. Most of my street-mates were flabbergasted at my accurate
perception of the moments when I had to go back home, sometimes even in
the middle of the game that I was playing.
We had two
pendulum clocks encased in very beautiful wooden frames that were sent
to my father, as a special gift, by a friend who resided in England in
those days. My father always expressed his pride in having those
valuable clocks sent by his friend.
When I had nothing to
do, I used to gaze at the huge clock in our living room. Its tick . . .
tick . . . tick mesmerized me. I would move my eyes with the swaying
movements of the pendulum in a very soothing, tranquilizing and
spiritual rhythm. And, after a few moments of that hypnotic phase, a
kind of very strong energy wave would start radiating in my body moving
in a circular motion from head to toe and vice versa.
I assume that many people would have had this type of experience at some stage of their life.
Being
the Ring Master of my very own circus, I always got myself engaged in
my universe of toys, each of which was labeled as a special character;
to such an extent that my mom would yell at me to say something or a
clock’s hourly striking sound would break my deep absorption.
In
later years, these clocks kept reminding me of their lively presence in
the house. Every moment of 365(6) days of the year recorded sometimes
low and sometimes loud tick-ticking during home-studies, listening to
radio programmes, enjoying weekend gatherings with friends and,
lethargic thinking, relaxing or inducing sleep and of course in all
weathers.
There was no escape from those perfectly and
mechanically set stubborn tick . . . ticks and chimes of exquisitely
designed clocks.
Now, while writing this, I feel that
those pendulum clocks, part of every urban household in those days, made
us feel the flow of passing time and let the echo of life play a soft
but awakening tune for us.
The digitalized era has
definitely made some chores of life exceptionally easy, convenient and
comfortable for us, but then it also has devoured the mesmerizing tick .
. . tick . . . tick of pendulum clocks that were a constant source of
reminding us of passage of time and evolution of life.
Besides memorable happy moments of childhood, I also badly miss those tick ticks.
