Thursday, 16 October 2014

White board syndrome

16th October, 2014.

I have a white board in my room. White magnetic board, kind of the one that is used in coaching classes, with some broken magnets I acquired from toy motors and speakers. The off white smooth surface has been there for me for years, keeping up with the whims and fancies I put it through without any complain (well it is an inanimate object so it won’t even make a sound if I put it on fire but…).

It’s after months that I cleaned my board, the unnecessary bits of papers, information that I jotted down in black bold marker ink on it, ideas and notes to self, everything. It was crowded and I needed a new space to put up new ideas, new information and stuff like that. Dusting sometimes helps you to understand things in their own way. I understood nay realized something last night. Funny how you intend to read something and only then your mind takes a walk, wanders off to unravel the mysteries of universe.

The pale light of my table lamp was illuminating my otherwise dark room as I was flipping through the pages of Hamlet, then To kill a mocking bird and finally through Modern India – 1857 to 1947 absent mindedly (yes you need to know that! I am showing off!), when I noticed the blank white board on the wall (mind you, I say noticed because I really didn’t noticed the surface for a long time), and it got me thinking, don’t we all have a white board with us? Hanging somewhere inside, always there yet unnoticed?  We see things, hear and feel things and the most relevant ones gets to be put up on the board for a long time, regardless of its any apparent use. Sometimes it just is a song which we don’t know but we hum absently, some words we read somewhere on the road and it happens to be at our disposal without any notice yet at the appropriate time of its need. Sometimes it is a feeling we get and it maybe hurtful or joyful or an amalgamation of both!

And there always comes a time when we just want to wipe off everything clean off the board, not even a slight stain of such ink remains. I’m not saying that we want to be some heartless bastard with issues, sometimes it just needs a new, clean surface to think feel and jot down things again! Indeed it makes us vulnerable, any clean and clear surface is vulnerable, bound to be stained with some ink sooner or later, but then, such vulnerability is worth. It is better to be stained than just being a blank board with nothing but years of dust. Sure you do need the occasional cleaning and you do need to throw out the unwanted bits, the things we don’t need, they just are occupying the space for anything new.  I don’t know how we do it, or should do it, the cleaning, but it is pretty much just like the way we actually clean a real white board. With a mug of water and a sponge (again some stupid metaphor, I don’t know what it means though).

I was thinking all this nonsense, floating adrift on some sky, wandering on the streets of some unknown land when a buzz on my phone pulled me back to my reality. A text message. The time was 12.06 am. It read “I am sad”… my white board was about to be stained again!

So, clean your boards, I am sure you have one. It is fun and more importantly, it helps!

Regards.




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