I was driving my scooter and suddenly, I felt a certain amount of lightness on my wrist. I realized that I had forgotten to wear my wristwatch. I usually wear a fitness band because of a unique reason that no other watch provides- It has a very thin belt. The other watches feel heavy and often hinder my typing process. And today was a free day. It was a day in which I had nothing on my wrist and was light. It felt different. It felt as if my hands were breathing freely and there was a certain emptiness that was both good and bad.

What are these things that have evolved from a stick on a ground to an omnipresent thing that you can spot in every gadget and technology? Why does a wristwatch in a hand give a certain swag or feeling that is not felt without it? I pondered these questions and realized that the device is a certain kind of magic. It had the charm of time. A charm that made you look photogenic if you set the watch. A charm that you can gift and gain from people. Time can be caging or liberating. If you are in a history class and look at the time, you feel when the lecture would be over. Sometimes, you look at the time and say, “Oh my God, it is so late! When did time pass?” (Probably doomscrolling on insta or watching useless cringe videos on YouTube. )


—Promotion break—

If you are reading this letter for the first time, you can check out other several posts such as Trial rooms and Toothpaste, Travel and Movies, Chair and Footwear, Mental Health and Curtains, Fans and advertisements, Gardening and Economies of effort, Lights and Rejection, Driving and Friendship, or Humor and Instant Messaging! Also, if you reply to this email, I would get your message so do send me your ideas and suggestions.


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It is iconic how the device that barely showed us time became a world in itself that makes your phone calls, calls your cab, and sometimes even scolds you because you do not drink enough water. (Stay hydrated people. You do not want to die from dehydration. Apocalypse will take care of that) Mumma will also scold and so would a watch now. Everyone is about to scold you and then you would have all these thoughts right before you go to sleep at around 2 or 3 am when you want your brain to be calm but it would be excited as if there is a fun fare going on with a lot of rides in it.

Maybe if I followed what they did in Gift of Magi, I would live a blissful life. But then, how would I change the song while driving my scooter? How would I start my car? Oh, wait. There are keys for that and I can probably make a driving playlist. It all boils down to laziness, haina? They say hard work is the key to success. But most of the time, we do not know what our problem is. We are so hell-bent on finding the “key” to the door that we forget that in order to open the door, we need to know what we would do after the door is opened. There is this beautiful quote that always stays in my mind. I think it is from Waiting For Godot.

“What would we do once we are happy?”

I guess the whole problem is the obsession with solving the problem. The key makers are the ones that are geniuses. Pure geniuses. I wonder if they are able to solve life problems as easily as they make keys. I once went to a Locksmith to get a duplicate key made. He saw the key and started to carve another key just by looking at it. I saw him with fascination and just observed him keenly. He made the key in less than 2 minutes and put it in my activa. It went inside and it could move but there was a certain roughness to it. He removed it and polished it and carved it again. Then he repeated the process and in less than 5 minutes, he gave me the new key. They do not care what I do with the duplicate key. I can throw it in the dustbin or melt it to form a new thing from it. They are happy with providing the key and let me decide what to do with it. This sounds so much like a person who is a teacher or a baba/Sadhvi who gives life advice and leaves you with the wisdom to follow your own path (not you Asaram).

The beauty of keys is their specificity. A single key cannot open every door. But it gives you the experience to know how each door functions. (Read Doors and Feminism for more on doors) If you try to apply the same key to every door, you would probably fail and have no success. In fact, you might even get frustrated and bored enough to give up on solving problems. Do not break the lock though. You would be considered a burglar. Unless you are already one. Hi! Let us do a money heist?

Life is a complex web of locks. Each lock has a different key and the idea is not to open every lock, but to know that there are some locks that are only present to make sure that you are alive and trying to do something in life. Locks are the solution to life, not keys. I told this my friend and he demanded the key to my scooter. I said these things are better suited for philosophy and not for real life. I misdirected him to take the key of his scooter and now he is still trying to figure out where the key went. Oh! I did not steal the vehicle though. I only stole the key. Because the idea is not to solve every problem but to have enough locks and problems that you never give up finding the key!

And on that note, my alarm rings and I realize I had put my wristwatch or the so-called fancy fitness band in my bag. (Cue- Bags and Batman) If I have realized one thing in my life, it is that my bag has everything that I need and I never lose anything. Maybe we never lose anything but we keep it so secretly that we forget our potential to find it. The idea is to unlock this potential. With or without the key.

Well, enough of Joke(y)s. That is it for this version of the newsletter. I hope you enjoyed reading this and that you could connect to the blabbering that I did.  Oh yes. Two things, I am looking for new topics so you can ping me your topics (two random words or concepts that do not connect.)
Also, I would soon be continuing and writing more song analysis so if you have a request for a song, please let me know. You can reply to this email and I would get your suggestion.

Thank you for reading! Until next time,

Ciao and take care!

Love,
Harsh


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