June 30, 2021 Commentary from my familiar hole

June 30, 2021 Commentary from my familiar hole: The nomad is always awake. “Phone ta pashei aache.” Time becomes increasingly a commodity to be rationed, and used judicially. You gain some and you lose some. In the end it all adds up. One could be driving at 1:30 am in the local time in one place when the body wants to be in another time. But there is a value to this. If I have learned something from the pandemic is that time has the potential of becoming global. I have taught at 1:30 am, I have been in a meeting at 9:00 in the morning when the rest of the people in the meeting are getting ready to eat a meal before going to bed. The challenge of this possible post-COVID-19 scenario could be quite real. This was going on before the pandemic but on the fringes of mainstream life. I remember many times I was “patched” in on a meeting on the phone and there were curiosities how it is possible to meet from anywhere, in such meetings we rarely remembered what time it was for the others. We did not see them, just a voice on the speakerphone. But that also made the person available. Anytime. It was a sort of a point of confidence. There was value in the statement, “always available” the 24/7 culture so typical of the USA. But now living through the pandemic we are all seasoned with this and the opportunities are quite clear. No one should be able to say of a person, “can’t find” the person, because the person might only be a zoom screen away. No need to find parking. No such excuses as “traffic was bad.” My screen may be restricted to the place as to where I am, but I can be in any time I need to be in whatever meeting room. Remember how we complained that one cannot be at the two places at the same time. Two zoom accounts, two laptops. In two places at the same time. We have to no longer worry about gathering people at the same place, or even find a meeting room, now we need to find the time that works for all. All over the World. So the real nomad is not one who moves through spaces, but one who moves through time. One who is available all the time. Who gets to stay up longer, and who has to wake up earlier. Sleep in between. New relationships, new alliances, new times. This seems to make life take on a different level of freedom and responsibilities. I have stopped saying that I am going to bed. It is almost always – I will get a little sleep – the tradition of a “ghum,” the kind of sleep that seems so tempting on the monsoon morning when the sky is overcast, the rain comes down next to my window, and you enjoy the sleep of the early morning, “bhorer ghum.” That ghum might be the victim when there is a class to be taught at 5:00 am to balance between the times where the bodies are.  This is why the nomad does not really go to bed but knows when to rejuvenate. This gives me the confidence to say to anyone – call anytime, “phone ta pashei aache (the phone is right next to me).” The nomad can always be humming with The Beatles, when they said, “Here comes the sun.”