Mathematics of Time

          Exactly eighteen days back that fine morning, the sunrise was a bit early at around 05:30 am and my mobile phone started ringing. I usually don’t wake up that early so it was highly unlikely that it was a missed alarm. It was quite odd since I wasn’t expecting anyone’s call that early and so I deduced that it had to be some urgency or some kind of a distress call from a close relative or pal. All these were the thoughts running through my mind as I was stretching out my hand to reach the side table to pick up the phone without getting out of bed and spoiling my sleep. My idea was to continue if it was an unwanted call. I was wonder-struck to see that the name that appeared on the screen read ‘GOD’, in capital letters exactly like that. I got scared, irritated, and angry at the same time, or maybe a mixed feeling, and the proportion of that mix only God could have explained. For the time being let’s call this mixed feeling to be ‘SIA’ as in Scared Irritated Angry. By the time this sia subsided, the full ring had already ended and I was still staring at my phone screen. My very first thought right after that was that this can be nothing but a super smart prank by my wife as a tit-for-tat for the last night’s incident. She is quite capable of opening my phone lock using my fingerprint when I am fast asleep the previous night to save her name as GOD in my contacts. That thought cooled me down a bit and my scariness quotient dropped considerably. I slipped the phone into my back pocket and walked straight into the kitchen. She was right there mixing chappati dough using both her hands. I asked her, “Are you mad? For whom are making chappatis so early in the morning?” She turned to look at me with an expression on her face as if she was quite expecting such stupid questions from me. She just said, “Why did you wake up so early? Please go and sit in front of the TV and don’t spoil my mood even before sunrise.” Seeing her there my scariness quotient did not shoot up, it was my irritation quotient that rose high because I was pretty sure that if it wasn’t her that was calling me on the phone then it must be someone else whom she has colluded with to call me after setting it already last night.

Spy work
     A quick smart idea popped up and I decided to silently leave the phone on the slab right next to her with the screen side up to see how she reacts when that name displays the next time. I placed it there and casually walked out to position myself on the sofa’s armrest in the corner of the living room to get a clear view of her face. The moment I sat on the uncomfortable seat and opened the newspaper to cover my face as I began to spy on her, that lovely heavenly ringtone began just as expected. I forgot to tell you about that ringtone; my God, it was truly a heavenly rhythm. The last time the phone rang my senses got completely lost in that music even though the first emotion that struck me was SIA after seeing the caller’s name as GOD. I was out of the world and fully drenched in that music. The moment the music stopped after a full ring, the SIA popped up again, and even though my yearning for that music was choking me, the tussle between fear and irritation of someone fiddling with my phone won the moment. Never have I ever heard such a music in my entire life before that moment and it is truly truly a masterpiece. It is impossible to not get drowned in that music if one listens to it calmly. No wonder that the second time as it was ringing right there in the kitchen, I was again out of the world deep in the music and when I regained my senses and as I opened my eyes I see that my wife is staring right at me from across the kitchen counter with her eyes and mouth wide open. I got confused by the expression on her face. To my surprise, she picks up my phone from the kitchen table with her very hand which is full of dough and started walking towards me in the living room.

Heavenly tone
     All that was happening after that was completely out of scope and not at all what I expected when I initially planned to spy on her. As she was this close to me I noticed tears running down her cheeks and she wasn’t able to say anything because her emotions were running high. She hugged me after dropping the phone on the sofa and started sobbing silently. She slowly regains her voice and asks me about the movie’s name in which this song is played and wanted me to promise her that I will take her to that movie that week without fail. I couldn’t resist asking her the reason for all this drama and emotions and she said that the music reminded her of some deeply spiritual feelings of happiness and love for God, for me, for her life, and for the whole world. God!!! My scariness quotient started rising slowly. The very next moment I see her running to the dining table looking out for her phone. Then running back to the kitchen immediately to wash her hands off the dough, wiping both hands on her apron as she is again running back to the dining table. Did you notice that she didn’t have any issues handling my phone with her dough-drenched hand but she touched her phone only after washing and wiping her hand? Anyways, we’ll come to that a little later. She is already beaming with happiness as she is dialling my number. My phone rings and we both hear my standard usual boring Nokia ringtone. She throws a short but rude glance at me and swiftly walks into the bedroom and bangs the door to lock it from the inside. This is her typical style of expressing anger when she assumes that I treated her badly or when she is angry with me or for that matter with anyone under the sun. It took me a couple of moments to gather my thoughts about all that was happening around me. I gradually realized that she is angry with me assuming that I had set up a boring ringtone for her number but such a lovely ringtone for someone else.

Oscar performance
     A few moments ago it was I who was doubting her for trying to prank me and now I am left in a situation like this. It is highly unlikely that she is unveiling an oscar winning performance in front of me but my mind still doesn’t want to believe that it wasn’t her who set it up. I wanted to forcefully make myself believe that she is trying to pull out a wonderful act else my scariness quotient will start bursting out of control. I knew pretty well that the situation will become worse if I don’t console her in less than 2 minutes but my stress was already draining me and so I decided half-heartedly to sit on the sofa for a few minutes and close my eyes to stay calm. A few minutes would have gone by and I woke up fresh as if from a deep sleep when I heard a thud. It was the sound of my phone that just fell on the floor from my hand as I dozed off. The moment I woke up from that short nap, all that was on my mind was to search for the name GOD in my contact list and further do some quick research about the number of missed calls received till that moment, ring duration, etc. By now my irritation had vanished into thin air, anger was getting evaporated gradually and the scariness quotient had transformed itself into partial numbness. That however did not make me inactive but started inducing a sense of excitement to enjoy the fun of all that’s transpiring around me. Quite understandably, I couldn’t find any such contact with the name GOD. In any case, I didn’t expect myself to be smarter than God to find God’s contact number saved on my device. The two names that came up on my contact search were Goddy and Godwin. One was his personal number and the other was his official number. After 10 seconds of staring at Godwin’s official number which was a fancy number, my eyes started to roll since my mind started acting as if it was a super detective. I thought even if the number was not on my contact list, it would certainly list on my recent-caller list. Not a trace of any such call from anyone in the recent-caller list since 7 pm the previous day. By the way, that last missed call on the recent-caller list was from my daughter Neha Suresh intimating me to connect on a video call. Few of you might have thought that Suresh was my name. You are wrong. Suresh is her husband’s name. Neha insists that she be addressed only as Neha Suresh after her marriage. My wife Ramani Krishnan isn’t that insistent about highlighting Krishnan as her last name anymore. She addresses herself as Ramani unless she is filling out any form. I console myself by saying that it might be because we are 40 years into our marriage already. I reminded her about it once during our early days of marriage casually and she gave me a crisp response to that which I will never forget. The nightmarish memory of that day has never given me enough courage since then to remind her about using my name as her last name anymore. For now, let’s get back to Neha Suresh. She and her family are expected to call to wish Amma on her 63rd birthday. The video call was scheduled at 7 am today to ensure that Suresh reaches home after work comfortably and all of them are available on the call.

KitKat
     It’s 7:10 am already and I switched on the mobile data quickly expecting a couple of missed calls. There weren’t any. I found a few text messages from her saying that Suresh was expected a bit late after work and that she is requesting me to hold on for half an hour past the scheduled time. There was another tragedy that was on the verge of unfolding in a few minutes since until then I hadn’t wished my wife a ‘happy birthday’. I sprung up from the sofa, picked up my wallet and rushed to the street corner store, and bought the biggest size Kit-Kat packet available in that shop. Came back home and kept it in the freezer. Then I went straight to her locked room and said, “Ramani, Neha will call in a few minutes to wish you. Get ready quickly. Before that, check out the fridge to see what I bought for you as a birthday gift to wish you on this special day”. The door was open even before I finished that sentence. “Happy Birthday my dear”. She says, Thank you and hugs me. The expression on her face gave a clue that she didn’t even remember that it was her birthday. She then goes straight to the fridge to find her favourite chocolate snack. She’s elated. She started behaving as if nothing odd happened till a few minutes back. I started hearing stories of her birthday celebrations during her teens when she accidentally fell into a river and how she bravely saved herself after swimming for 10 minutes continuously. All this storytelling was happening as she was munching the chocolate pieces. For every two pieces she puts into her mouth, she fed me one too. The speed at which she was finishing the chocolate reminded me of my office days when I used to push a whole dosa or chappati into my mouth while I buttoned my shirt, wore my shoes, and ran out of the house. That on-stop chattering was fully loaded with stories about her childhood birthdays. Three of them were already over and she was already in the kitchen as she started the next story. The rule of the game was that when she was talking to me about something which she thinks was interesting then I was supposed to laugh, smile or feel sad based on the mood of the story at that particular instance in the story. More importantly, I was expected to go behind her wherever she goes, to hear her stories and respond. If any of this doesn’t happen then that day a thriller movie will unfold in my life. Most of the days, before I retired from work, were filled with thriller movies and horror movies. Now that am 68 years old, my wife-handling skills have improved appreciably. The day being her birthday, I was all the more careful to remind myself to keep her spirits high.

Neha’s call
     Suddenly I got a thought triggered by one of her boring childhood incidents but I couldn’t ask her to stop her story or even pause for a short while. She will get furious that I am not interested in listening to her wonderful childhood memories. The urge to act on my thought was so strong that I found a way to get her also hooked on my thought. I interrupted her story and told her that the beautiful ringtone was set on my device to give a surprise to her on her birthday. I got another kiss and hug from her immediately for that. Now that she was into it, I started trying to search for that audio file on my device since my finite scientific mind advised me that a ringtone can play on a device only if that is stored in it. Ramani was losing patience and I could hear sounds of irritation since she had been waiting to hear that tone again for the past 10 minutes. I searched the entire device but couldn’t find anything close to that tone. After wasting 15 whole minutes on it, I calmed down, and only at that moment common sense came back into my mind. My mind voice asked me, “If the name GOD didn’t appear in the contact list and the recent-caller list even after 3 missed calls, what did I really expect to find when I searched for the audio file in my device?” I finally told her that I was not able to find the ringtone. In the same breath, she replied that I just have to go to Godwin’s contact and click on the custom ringtone option and see which folder is linked to it and find the path to the folder displayed in the top left corner. I felt like banging my head on the wall in shame since she was a commerce graduate and I was a postgraduate in computer science with all my experience as a networking specialist across industries for 30 years. Despite spending 15 minutes on it, it did not occur to me that I could find the ringtone assigned to Godwin following that route too. Those were simple basics but my mind wasn’t functioning normally since morning. Anyways, I thanked her and jumped into action only to find my default Nokia ringtone assigned to it. Poor me again. It did not occur to me that by reading ‘GOD calling’ on the screen, she assumed that the call was from my friend Godwin and that God was his nickname. Ramani was already getting bored waiting for it and so she got back to her work. I got disheartened and went back to my sofa silently. After 5 minutes Neha called. Ramani came running to the sofa, followed by wishes flying in from California, and kisses flying back from Pondicherry. I was least interested in any of that though I noticed that Suresh is nowhere in the picture as yet. Raghav and SriVidhya are going around wishing their Paatti (Grandmother) again and again. There was one unfamiliar voice too which I overheard. That was an old neighbour lady who came by to have a quick chat with her. At times Neha expressed regret that Suresh was still on his way back from the office and that he will be reaching home anytime. I interrupted there and told her that there was nothing to worry about and that she can wish her again next year and that too much wishing is not good for old ladies. They all laughed and bid goodbye. The old neighbour lady wished Ramani again just before I disconnected the call.

Day2
     I kept waiting for the most expected call impatiently but nothing came by. Breakfast was over. Lunch was special since it was her birthday. Supper was as usual a combination dish made out of the remains of breakfast and lunch. It was 9:10 pm and we were preparing to sleep. Ramani was expressively very happy that I remembered to gift her a KitKat. I doubt if she would have been so happy if I had bought her a diamond necklace. In less than 3 minutes after that statement, she was fast asleep. Lying right next to her, I was still trying hard to contemplate the events of that day. After a while, I opened my eyes and felt fresh and energized as if from deep sleep only to find the lights in the room still on. While I stretched out to switch off the light, I saw the time on the digital clock that was placed on the side table and it was 5:25 am. Ramani was still sleeping tight. I remembered that exactly at 05:30 am the previous day, the first call from God landed on my phone. I unplugged my phone which was getting charged and held it in my hand as if I waiting for that call again at 05:30 am. I was staring at my phone screen and it was 05:29 am. After a few seconds, the time changed to 05:30 am, but nothing happened. I waited for around 20 seconds in the same posture and then I was about to keep my phone aside and switch off the light to lie down, and the heavenly tone started again. The screen read, ‘GOD calling’. I turned my head to see if Ramani was hearing that. She was smiling in her sleep as if she was deeply enjoying the intonations of the music. I didn’t want to miss the call this time again at any cost. I couldn’t find any button on the screen though to attend the call. In the process of breaking my head to somehow find a way to attend the call, incidentally, I took the phone to my ear, and the call got connected automatically. You can be sure that I would not have said ‘hello’ or any such word. I intended to just listen to the voice on the other end of the call. After a short pause, a mature, crystal clear manly voice calmly said, “Peace be with you Krishnan”. I replied spontaneously as if it was a friend wishing me on Deepavali saying, “Same to you”. But then the very next moment, even before I would have felt embarrassed about my rude response tone, the aura of peace that was wished to me was engulfing me and I was at total ease. I felt as if I was floating in the air. Even though I came back to my senses in a short while, I did not have the guts to ask who it was. The voice said, “Don’t worry about the name or identity of whom you are talking to. You will not have any doubts about who I am after this call gets disconnected. Now, get out of your bed, brush your teeth, drink half a glass of water, and come straight up to the terrace. Let’s continue with the conversation after that. Like I said earlier, since there wasn’t any attend button, there wasn’t any disconnect button on the screen too. I jumped out of bed, kept the phone on the dining table, and quickly finished all that was advised on the call. I picked up the phone and walked straight to the terrace. I didn’t realize that the phone was not disconnected all this while and so I was waiting to hear the tone again. Only when I unlocked the phone to check on the time did I realize that God was waiting on the call all this while. The voice said, “Turn to your left and look at the horizon. Wait another 2 minutes and you’ll see the sunrise.” It is still twilight and my eyes are glued to the exact spot where the sun is expected to rise from.

Sunrise
     Exactly after 2 minutes, I saw the first rays of the sun break out. I was about to exclaim, “God” as I was sure by now who was on the call, but before any sound came out of my mouth, God said, “Enjoy my presence near you as you experience the joy in the sight of this sunrise. A response from me to your further questions about a confirmation of this voice being that of God’s isn’t as important to you as this experience of peacefully enjoying a sunrise while talking to a voice whom you believe is from God. Live this very moment in life to the fullest. Remember not to suffocate such, once in lifetime, moments by flooding them with questions that can wait for a later date. You see, just a thought like that in your mind made me take you through this lecture for the last 3 minutes. Now, feel my presence even better in the following silence. Look for me in the creations of mine that have managed to remain unpolluted till this moment from their creation. To put it in simple language, you are at least close to the right track if you are able able to feel my presence even better and interact with me closely as you gaze at sunrise, in the cool breeze of dawn or hear my voice in the sound of sparrows chirping at dusk or in the smell of a roadside flower or in the taste of water from a mountain stream or in the touch while you caress a newborn baby. If you are still finding it difficult to appreciate this, then you are too hard a nut to crack, even for me. Mind you, you are already 67 years old. How many days do you think are remaining in your life to even attempt to get back on the right track?”

     “Days???????????”

     I was shocked to hear that word from Him. Most importantly when this ‘Him’ is God. Usually, when someone uses the word ‘days’ in such a sentence, it is not wrong for me to assume that I don’t even have a full month left in my life. Till that moment, I was at peace hearing His beautiful voice, gazing at the rising sun and at times wondering at the expanse of the sky, and feeling the cool dawn breeze.

Purpose in Life
     God continues, “You see, I told you a few moments back that you will keep finding reasons to get distracted. Now you are getting worried to know the exact date of your death, as to whether it will be 18 days from today or will it be 23 days. You are still missing the whole point despite 3 attempts by me to remind you about living the present moment to the fullest in my presence as you are interacting with me. This is exactly how the so-called problems in man’s life are distracting him from living in peace. Did you notice that I said, ‘so-called problems’ and not real problems? Ideally, man’s concern should be primarily about himself getting distracted repeatedly, being a laggard, and not being keen about spending quality time interacting with me in silence about the original purpose I had in my mind when I created you. To try and understand clearly the very purpose of your existence and that which you were supposed to accomplish in this short life gifted to you on this earth. However, as of date, there are only 3462 people out of the 8 billion who are at least 90% conscious and serious about this ultimate Truth.” I didn’t even feel like asking God if I was one among the 3462 since I was pretty sure that I won’t be. I was the kind of a person who used to make fun of my neighbour when he used his terrace space for flower pots instead of growing some vegetables to save some money that way instead of wasting time on those useless flowers. I used to spend time at the office debating at length about the stupidity of wasting time on the concept of God and why spirituality should be banned for children below 14 years. I used to get angry at Ramani every other day for not discouraging Neha from following some new religious faith that she has been interested in for the past few years. After all these thoughts flashed in my mind in less than a second, I continued hearing God.

Death
     “Live your life with the utmost sincerity that is possible for you to handle at this moment. If you have the habit of lying to your wife often, try to sincerely make it seldom. The key factors that will determine your speed of character improvement will be rooted in how well you manage the very limited TIME gifted to you and the WILL power employed by you to sincerely enforce it repeatedly.” Suddenly I got an urge to ask God if I can record the call or take notes since I might forget half of all these most important pieces of advice. Before even I was able to gather the courage to interrupt the monologue, God pauses for a moment after the last sentence and says to me, “Krishnan, don’t you know yet that my technology is more effective than any of your latest technologies that will ever be created by man? All that is required as input from your end for my technology to start working is a little bit of ‘sincerity’. I prefer calling that a ‘virtue’ and not a ‘technology’ but for the ease of your understanding, let it be so for now. If you use my technology and regard it, it will work better than any of your AI-backed conversation recording tools available in the market. In simpler words, all that you heard from me since 5:31 am until now and all that you will hear from me till 6:43 am can be retrieved word by word at every moment in the future when you sincerely attempt to make use of it for the overall betterment of your character aimed at bringing back your life on track. You think you will live for another 13 years at least until you are 80 years old despite all your illnesses. You are funny man Krishnan. I like your positivity. Ha Ha Ha”. It was amazing to hear God crack a joke making fun of me. The laughing sound was truly majestic. I laughed along with Him hearing Him laugh that way, even though I was supposed to be horrified to death being worried about how much He was going to reduce 13 to. I was sure that no one will believe me if I say that God laughed at me about my thought, not even Ramani. Anyways, after a hearty laugh, He continued. “Most men are positive and hopeful about only their long life on earth, nothing else. If I tell you that you just have another 1.5 years left to live, what do you intend to do and complete before your chapter is closed? Let’s say, out of the 543 days left, for the last 218 days you will be bedridden. That brings the total days down to 325 days. Further, for another 121 days, you’ll be at your daughter’s house in California. That makes 204 days left. Today, because of my lengthy lecture you’ll decide to read a few books on spirituality, life experiences of saintly people, and life histories of a few people who have understood me well during their lifetime, but you will waste another 86 days reading useless books since your current personality is not yet tuned enough to differentiate between average, good and very good books. So, effectively the number comes down to 118 days. Going by your current capacity to stay focused, you can’t even read and complete 4 books in those many days. Now, that is where things stand as of date. Don’t be sad. You had 60+ years after your childhood days for you to connect with me even better. I gave you several warnings. Do you remember your conversations with Rakesh when you were in Hyderabad on your first job after college? 18 other serious reminders till you retired. Do you remember your conversation with Neha last September? Anyways, the past is past. Starting today, do your best. You still can buckle up and do wonders if you decide to streamline your focus on TIME and WILL power. Make the best use of the gift of TIME and the free WILL granted to you. See you after 543 days. Peace be with you.”

     “What are you doing here?”. Hearing Ramani’s question I quickly wiped off my tears since my back was still turned to her. I looked at the phone screen and it was exactly 6:43 am just as God said a few minutes back. I couldn’t resist a deep sense of unexplainable unique feeling of happiness that arises from the highest level of peace. I turned back and walked up to Ramani and hugged her. She didn’t expect a hug from me right on the terrace. Then I took her hand and walked her to the spot where I stood motionless talking to none other than God. I pointed at the sun and said, “I was enjoying the sunrise in the cool breeze. God spoke to me.” She replied immediately saying, “I know. I used to talk to God this way until marriage. After that you started making fun of me and getting angry at me for wasting time, so I stopped. It has been over 40 years now.” She blurted all that innocently staring at the sun without realizing that she was piercing a sword right into my chest. I couldn’t control my emotions anymore so I quickly went behind her so that she doesn’t see my tears. Keeping my chin on her right shoulder I said, “I am really sorry my dear”. I thought she will say, that it is okay but she said, “Let us see if you’ll be in the same mood tomorrow morning. If you are, then both of us shall come up here and spend some time together.” I kissed her and we both walked down the stairs. I was a completely new person and she was certainly a bit more happy and content trying to get hold of the reason for my sudden change of behaviour.