My magic 2 hour clock to break the cursed Hymn

120 minutes, that was what was offered on the table. ‘Go on take it’ said a voice inside me. As much excited I was to pick up those minutes, I was also scared. I thought how useful these could be and at the same time I also thought, being the lazy guy I am what would happen if I turned them into another lazy memory…..

No you won’t! said my heart, and I believed it. And when I picked up those 120 minutes, I imagined what they could offer to me and amazing would be the understatement to what I could do with those 2 hours. This is how I would spend my 2 extra hours in a week…

Day 1: Monday

Everybody thinks life starts on a Sunday, but life really starts on a Monday. Many people like me hate to get up in the mornings. Standing in queue for the bathroom in a PG hostel where I live, just to take a hurried bath so that I can reach office on time, or 15 minutes late as the records show. Yes that’s my start of every Monday.

Day goes by and evening approaches, in all my work, youtube addiction and messaging that someone special, I forget to have any time for myself. I want to, ‘but there is no time’. It’s like a hymn that my lips have learnt to say without my knowledge. There at that particular moment I realize what I have in my pocket. My 2 hours. My extra 120 minutes where I can do anything I want.

An invisible alarm starts up for my 120 minutes and the world stops. It’s just like in the matrix training sequence, where they can pause time. Whatever happens in life doesn’t bother me, because those 120 minutes are mine.

I start by doing my most favorite activity in the world- Writing.

Even though I am a copywriter I barely get time to write what I truly love- Poetry. It’s not like I am a big shot at it or anything, hell I don’t even follow the rules sometimes. But poetry is one way through which I have lived through many of my emotions. Be it my first breakup or how much I hate war. Poetry has always helped me to express what I feel in a much better way.

Tell me i love you with so much depth

That the ocean itself, screams out looking at your's.

Tell me i love you with so much strength

That the hurricane falls down on its knees, weeping out of its glory.

Tell me i love you with so much intensity

That even the raging forest fire turns itself to dust, in shame.

Tell me i love you with so much love

That love itself may find its true worth today.

This is of my favorite poems.. and inspired by this i wanna write something like this.

Trust I this world, because it gives me hope with each sunrise.

Trust I every person I see, because I see a smile waiting to breakout in everyone of them

Trust I this time, because I know it will come, where I see all I hope coming true

The only problem is just placing that trust on myself, to believe.

I know it’s nothing much, hell maybe others will think its complete crap, but I don’t care. It’s my life and the way I see it, anything that makes me happy as long it’s not illegal, is good enough for me :).

And suddenly that alarm goes off, saying my time is up.. That’s how I would spend every Monday of mine. A poem to start my week, which would make me believe that anything is possible. That world can be a place where I can do what I love, no one to hold me back, not even my own lazy self :).

Day 2: Tuesday

Same ordeal follows, but I am so happy with what happened yesterday I cannot wait to start up my 2 hour clock which allows me to do all the things I love.

Tuesday is a day filled with just as much work, presentations and all those things. But it is also special because it’s an unofficial lucky day in our family.

According to my mom, everything from a fridge, TV, to a washing machine that we have bought for our home was on a Tuesday.

Following this tradition, I am going to shop. With the small salary that I have, all of it goes into expenses. After that whatever gets saved, I cannot spend it coz of that hymn again.. ‘there is no time’. So Tuesday’s I am going to shop. Online shopping is easier and will get things delivered right at my doorsteps. So from a water bottle to my fav pair of jeans, I am going to shop for everything that I need and window shopping for all the things that I want. I want to shop online, because nobody makes a sour face when you go out of the store without buying, so… :P.

Day 3: Wednesday

I want to write again. As much as I love writing poetry, I love writing stories. I have written 3 short stories still now. They are not awesome or anything, but I like them.

So starting that magic 2 hour clock I am going to start writing again.

You may not believe me, but I have at least 17 stories in my mind which I would love to get on paper. I know the start, I know the climax and I know how every one of them is going to end. So why am I not starting… again.. the hymn ‘there is no time’ comes back. “OK, all right, you are just plain old lazy” you might say but just picturize this.

Travel for 1.30 hour every morning in the bus to reach office within 9:30 (if my boss is reading this, I try sir, I really try :P). Stay there for almost 10 in the night to reach back home by 11.30. I just don’t have the energy to be creative enough to write. So Wednesday’s I am going to assign to writing again, because I want to get published.

I know I have the ability to write stories which people would care about, even if they don’t turn out to be bestsellers. I know I have that within me and with these 2 hours I am going to complete that. I am going to write all the 17 stories, currently stored in ‘D:\THOUSIF\BRAIN\ SECTOR 37\ Stories to be turned into novel’ and try to get them published.

Day 4: Thursday

As soon as you step out of college and get into a job, you dedicate yourself into it in such a way that you forget some things. In my case, it was my friends.

Yes, I am a horrible person; I can say that by the dirty looks that you are giving to me. Trust me, not a day goes by where I don’t remember them. Everyone has done something special for me and I remember them every day, just not able to pick up that phone and call them.

Work does stress me out, where a brief might come any minute and I have to run into a meeting. So starting my mystical 2 hour clock, every Thursday I am going to call every one of my friend even if it’s for 5 mins and let them know that I care about them.

I have always believed in the value of friendship and with this vow, I am going to keep the promise made. No matter what happens, these 2 hours are dedicated to my friends.

Day 5: Friday

I start this day with a smile because I know tonight is going to be the start of the weekend. I am going to start the 2 hours and I am going to plan what I am going to do in the weekend. Every week the same thing happens, either I plan too late or I just do things in such a hurry that nothing satisfies me. I have to read the novels I rent on the bus, I don’t even have time to just sit back and relax to read a book. So I am going to sit down on Friday, switch on to my fav internet station and plan out the things to be done for the weekend.

Day 6: Saturday

My fav day, because I can get up in the morning anytime I want as it’s a holiday. Yayyyyy :P. Still I don’t understand one thing about holidays. As soon as you get up, the day goes so fast and turns into night in a blink, even if you are doing absolutely nothing.

Here’s an example of how that happens: Get up at 11, bathe, breakfast, till then it’s time for lunch, I watch a lil TV its already four and till I plan to do anything its 10 o clock.

So the Saturday that is going to come I am going to work on what I planned on Friday and I want to do something that I have not done for a long time (Read: Almost never)

I live in Bangalore, so on Saturday I want to hop on the first bus and reach Madikeri, my hometown where my parents live. The ride is almost 7 hours and till I reach it’ll almost be evening. I just want to reach home take a bath and activate those 2 hours and within these 2 hours I want to cook with my mom.

I want to do it because, my mom has been very lonely after my sister passed away 2 years ago. I haven’t been able to give her proper time because of my studies, projects, and work. I want to be with her to talk to her and know everything happened in that week, and I want to cook because I want my mom to know that I care for the things she loves. She loves cooking but because I live so far away she has lost her interest in it. She feels there’s no one to cook for. I want to reinstate her confidence and show her that I care about her and I care about her cooking, and I want to be there for her to see her smile while we are having dinner. I want to use those 2 hours for that, to see her smile.

Day 7: Sunday

Another holiday, I am home and I can wake up to the sweetest alarm I’ve heard in a long time. My mom yelling my name asking me to wake up and take a shower :P. I have missed that alarm for 3 years now. The thing about mothers is that, you only get to know their true value after you are on your own.

So I want to listen to her voice calling my name and then go down and hug her and say good morning and devote the day to the most important person in my life, my dad.

Being in his shop all day for the past 27 years my dad has done a lot. He has worked day and night, even on Sunday’s, to give me a good life. I want to be there for him and help him with the shop. Activating my 2 hours, I want to help him more in the shop to give him that 2 extra hours of sleep which he has lost for the past 27 years. I would savour every minute of it and I would love to see the fresh look in his eyes when he wakes up again.

As evening comes, I would say goodbye to them and catch a bus back to Bangalore to start my week again, but this time I would have the magical and very very useful clock of 2 extra hours in my pocket. The 2 hours which would let me do all the things that I love and care about.

All this would be possible with the 2 extra hours I’d get from Surf Excel Matic where I can turn the hymn ‘…but there is no time’ to ‘ …but I have 2 extra hours’. The 2 hours that I get, I am going to spend making a lot of memories and I know that I’d love each minute of it.

This post was written for the Indiblogger competition ‘If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it?’

I want to thank Indiblogger and Surf Excel Matic for giving me a platform to express what I felt. I had a lovely time writing this post; it would not have been possible if not for them. Thank you.

Disclaimer: All images have been taken from google. I have no right over any of them.