Amongst my earliest recollections of childhood are memories of a giant grandfather clock in my mother’s hall. It loomed large in our lives and seemed to dictate the routine of the household. We awoke to its deep, sonorous ding-dong scrambling through the morning rush for school with one ear cocked to its dignified tolling of the hours. In the evening, we honoured it with sneaking glances to watch its sluggish progress during the tuition hour at home.
I have not been able to emancipate myself from this bondage so far. In fact, when I look around, I notice that everyone at home is absolutely tied to the dictates of the clock. Starting with the man of the family who dashes up to the breakfast table in the process of knotting his tie with “just a cup of coffee, I am already late” and he’s off in a trice! Junior who emulates his parent flies off to school clutching a half eaten banana in one hand and a satchel of books in the other. Life is one long race against time for everybody.
Even the so-called leisured lady of the house with a retinue of full and part-time domestic help at her disposal gets through her morning housekeeping chores in a frantic haste to enable her to get to her bridge table and coffee party on time. But don’t think that once she gets there, she is able to sit back and relax. They get down to business in right earnest, to be able to get through as many rubbers as possible. That last ‘quick’ rubber stretches out indeterminably. Cards are dealt out with nervous speed by deft expert fingers, but she is already fifteen minutes late to pick up her husband from his office. They both sit down to a belated lunch with jittery nerves and fuming faces.
The average white-collar worker of today is in the same boat. He wakes to the shrill alarm of the clock next to his bed at an ungodly hour of the morning, follows a sketchy toilet and a hasty breakfast and spends almost an hour continuing to his place of work. Once there, his wild efforts to beat time start afresh.
As for the businessman, he is forever racing against time between various board meetings or rushing through heavy city traffic to catch a plane to another business conference. His day’s work is never over, for even at home he has an intimidating array of telephones that ring and ring again giving him the latest stock market news or details of some new industrial merger. A hasty shower and change may get him in time to a cocktail party or a dinner date, but it will not help him to relax. A furtive glance at his watch and he excuses himself at the earliest opportunity; he must try and have a comparatively early night because he has a squash game at 6 a.m. the next morning.
Oh, for a utopia where watches and clocks do not exist and the nearest approach to the face of a clock is the full-blown bloom of a dandelion or a dahlia. Imagine waking up to the twittering of birds and the morning sun kissing your eyelids. There is no wild race or mad rush to get anywhere. You go if and when you want to or not at all. You can laze on the beach and spend the day in idle rumination. You eat when you are hungry and rest in the shade when the midday sun is high.
Basking in leisurely reverie, I suddenly heard the grandfather clock and glanced at my wristwatch and flew as I jumped down the stairs. That good old grandfather clock was a family heirloom and over 100 years old, but it could still keep the family in check. What a comforting thought!
Beautifully written 😊 My exposure to today’s Gen Z are that they are quite relaxed about time, as if they have oodles of it. Long may that last!