You and I wake up each morning with an agenda, ‘got to do that’, ‘got to do this’, then after that ‘will start this’, or just ‘let me catch the bus in time!’

In my mind as I am sitting in the bus taking us to the university I am constantly ticking off things to do, ‘ok, so she had her breakfast,’, ‘have to talk to my mom’, ‘that attendance register is pending’, ‘that report has to go’ and so on and so forth.

Usually its a mixed bag of emotions, but mostly the inner voice is critical of unfinished tasks, ‘the electricity bill, not paid’, ‘plan for that’, ‘this’ and so it goes.

Sometimes I am reminded of accumulating fat, or the birthday that I forgot or a wish for a truer friend!

Other times, it is the job and its associated tensions

Today on our way to the bus stop on the two wheeler, we meaning both myself and my daughter got hit and well a lamp post and my daughter’s scooter kind of saved us from greater pain and injury.

When I lay there on the foot path, my eyes shut and still in shock, my mind became alert suddenly and looked out for my daughter. Having seen her intact, I turned around to register what was happening to me, some injury at the back of my head, oh! but then I catch the sight of a familiar face, peering at me, one of my students!, thank god and I brighten up instantly asking for his hand to get up and then we go to the hospital and the usual stuff!

But the point is, suddenly it was as if every thing around me slowed down, as if life was in slow motion, gently lapping by, it seemed as if for that few seconds and then till now in the evening as I am typing this out, a sense of slowness has entered my mind and my sense of being, a sense of grounding, painful, yes, but also thankful for escaping what could have been rather major otherwise!

Sitting at home, thinking about those precise moments of somersault of which I have no recollection, I wonder how life turns in a split second, for the better or the worse, with impending classes of PhD at the university, exam duties, report submissions, preparation and what not, this lull… a certain slowness…that has taken over my being, my awareness of things around.

It is funny how life forces these moments on us… and how quickly we forget the transience of living!

Sometimes a fall, a change in the routine, helps put things in the right perspective! Mostly though, it just important to feel thankful for what is than cry over what is not!

Cheers to life, living and happiness as long as life lasts!