Buffeted on all sides

"HURRY UP Ashok. You will be late for your exam", screams an anxious mom to her eight-year- old son as the clock nears 8 a.m.

"Sorry, I am late. I was held up because of a procession on TTK Road. Though I took an auto, because of traffic diversion I still could not reach on time", apologises Smitha to her boss.

"If only I had some more time, maybe I would have done a better job", says the student, or the software expert, or any professional who feels his present output is certainly not the very best.

Are these indications of the crowded nature our day-to-day living has acquired of late? Has the concept of leisure time faded into a nostalgic fog?

Many of us are happy with modern technology as it has chipped in to help us with our daily chores. A washing machine took away the drudgery of beating the soap-soaked clothes, even as it washed and dried them, relieving the strain on the human wrist. These are the times when housemaid service has become only a memory, a luxury which the earlier generation had enjoyed. So the mixie becomes indispensible to the kitchen worker, for masala grinding or making spice powders. The Euroclean equipment promises spic and span homes. What have e-mail, laptops, the mobile phone, fast food and the like done to our lifestyle? Then we have remote controls, express checkouts, that are designed to enable quicker transfer of information, faster delivery of goods, with promise of more time.

But the irony of the situation stares out in the fact that all this modern technology that is supposed to provide us with more leisure and less exertion has backfired on us, doing just the opposite. Most of the middle class families have strengthened their purchasing power and have been able to line their houses with all these gadgets that promise to save time. But at what cost? Two-salaried families havebecome the norm rather than an exception. Parents go to work and try to do everything just a bit faster, only to end up finding that none of these can ease time's crushing powers, except leaving them impatient. Children are left at the creches, or with maid servants, or cooks.

Monica, balancing successfully a career and domestic life, says, "I know how much the microwave, instant foods and other such facilities have helped me to cope with the increasing demands of today's hectic schedules. But I also wonder how my mother, who retired as a school teacher in addition to being a writer, always seemed to have time to take care of us as children in a manner I find hard to emulate. In my search for more time I have lost out on my reading too, which now seems to be a luxury from the past".

And the casualty ultimately is the luxury of leisure time or quality time.

It looks as if the clock runs our life. The more we try to save time, the less we seem to have. With all this rush, we are changing the world more rapidly than we can understand it; the physical energy in us leaves us lacking in the mental energy to even contemplate the consequences.

Has haste, once a vice, now become a virtue? Are we moving into a world where instead of the big eating the small, the fast eat the slow?

A hectic life is not necessarily more meaningful. Racing through everything can lead one wondering what one has been too busy to notice.

Is there an alternative to this dilemma? Instead of wrestling with time in an attempt to conquer it, would it be wise to work with it?

Instead of squeezing maximum productivity out of each second, should we reduce the volume of activities and stay focussed on what really matters?

Seventy-year old Rukmini Ammal of Vennar Bank, who now stays with her son in Chennai says, "Life in those days was bound by tight schedules. But there was an ebb and flow. Summer season saw us pluck tamarind or mangoes and also do the pickling.

The onset of summer would make us busy with rice preparations like vathal or vadaams that would last us all through the year. It was the season of sundakkai or manathakkalikai or green chillies salted and soaked in curds and sun-dried. Work was done to to the task and not to time".

Deepak Trivedi, successful CEO of an imaging company, says,"The nature of work is important. Certain jobs require intense mental concentration that can take a toll on the personality. Creative people get their hunch during their idle times". Shiv Khera of Qualified Learning Systems also advises to look for an attitudinal adjustment to work and try to alternate periods of stress and ease.

Bedazzled as we are by the high technology, sometimes we feel like falling in line with grandma's call, " bring the knife" rather than the food processor.

For not only do we have to take it from the shelf and retrieve it from accumulated dust, but also clean it again after the cutting spree. Not that we decry technology. Let it not control our lives.

PADMINI DEVARAJAN

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Tackling time

Yes...you are racing against time. But stop. Here are some timeless tips that you can follow without a fuss.

* Learn to relax and enjoy lunch or tea breaks amidst hectic schedules.

* Learn to take advantage of unexpected bonuses like a flight delay or a traffic jam to figure out certain plans, even as Nehru had utilised jail terms for writing, calling it enforced leisure.

* Learn to enjoy vacations. A good vacation should make you ignore time.

* Don't crowd your vacation with too many events, lest you end up chasing time once again. May be then, we stand to gain the most precious possession - "quality time".

* Review schedules. Learn to say no. By saying no to more tasks, we can be more focussed and productive. Accept that we cannot do all.

* Learn to take productive breaks, especially in the midst of Catch -22 situations.

* Learn to savour the riches around us, like the wealth of Nature.

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