Sunday, October 27, 2019

Roam, Zigzag Some More | FMS #375

Friends, this month 36,000 print copies were taken by readers to create their own milieus. We welcome your contribution to address this growing demand.



FMS#375 || Faridabad-NCR || September 2019
Stillness too has a noise.

Meaning?

Friend, ask not what it means; start a duet.

Hah! That’s a new spin.

(Laughter)

How far will asking the meaning of a thing take you?

First you will try to infer how many are being referred to. Then you’ll ask what the event was. And then you’ll want to know what came of it. That’s it, thought circles back to where it started from.

We bind our curiosity. A compelling argument, my friend. We cocoon ourselves.

Roaming is important. Circular paths are boring. Roam we must, so why not start at a tangent.

And then zigzag some more. Change the vehicle now and then. Slow down a little. Describe the route. The breeze too, sometimes. And blow in the wind a bit. Some fantasy. Some joyful halts.

So let’s roam then. Let’s start with this amazing intuition, this gift from our friend here: Stillness has a noise. Let’s go!

Wait! One question. You’re saying we all have intuition. And the insights from intuition can feel like they are without analysis and consideration.

She’s also saying that this intuition loses it force and joy when pressured by a demand for elaboration.

Ok so let’s travel. I’ll start. One screaming project manager. Five quiet workers. Some time passes. Fifty quiet workers. Some more time passes. Hundred and eighty quiet workers. Some more time. Three hundred and fifty quiet workers. Project manager goes crazy and runs out of the gate, screaming all the way. All workers stay still.

It starts with a few words: ‘Why did you bring it?’ Everyone looked at each other. Time dissolved. Everyone slowly started gathering around the production manager. Time stopped. We were two hundred and fifty. We were all silent. Electricity coursed through our bodies.

We see each other for the first time. Again.

These days signatures are being demanded on forms that say, ‘I am leaving work of my own free will’. We are all silent.

There is a noise in this stillness.

We were called to a job with personal phone calls. We were assured a yearlong tenure. Fifteen days into the job, and some were told to leave. One month on, some more were told to leave. Forty-five days, and some were again told to leave. Two months, some more. We are four hundred now, and we are in conversation. We will sit inside the factory. And we’ll talk with each other freely. And we will be still.

We were quiet. We were listening to music. It was very hot outside. In Saudi, the temperature soars to 50 degrees. Buses were sent. Threats were made. Requests were made. Assurances were given. Police fired in the air. We were five thousand; we did not come out. We were listening to music. Chicken was slow-cooking in large utensils.

When four, or five, or seven and eight of us finish the night shift and step out, we talk a lot. Like floodgates have opened. All kinds of stories. Some experienced, some heard. And a whole lot of forecasting.

And many, many kinds of intuition inter-lacing sentences. Sources are many. From places very many. And from strangers unknown and unnamed.

Let’s keep playing.


FMS October 2019 by baatein1 on Scribd