The length and breath of time

 

Long years ago, there were people who measured distance in terms of the number of cassettes that the bus driver would play from point of departure to the destination. Others measure distance in hours. So many hours from A to B. Today, if you use Google Maps, for example, you can find out not only the distance, in kilometers or miles, but how long it would take you, depending on your  mode of transport.  

Time. We measure it in years in the case of a person’s age for example. Time. We measure it in weeks or days, for example how long it would take to apply for and obtain a national identity card or passport, how long it would take to complete a degree etc.

‘How long,’ is an interesting term.

I calculate at times. I check how long it’s been since I was in Grade One, how long since I entered university, how long since I graduated, how long since I worked in a newspaper office, how long since I first met someone, how long since the British conquered our nation, and how long since they left (and of course the inevitable postcolonial follow-up, ‘did “they” ever leave?’

How long has it been since my mother passed away? My grandmothers, grandfathers, friends from school and university: how long has it been since they died?  Years. Exact dates. These are usually associated with answers to such questions.  

I have been asked by my late mother’s former students who have been too busy with their lives to check on such things, how she’s doing.

‘She passed away,’ I answered.

‘Really? That’s sad. When?’

‘Sixteen years ago.’  

‘Such a long time ago; I am sorry, I didn’t know.’

Such exchanges there have been.  

But ‘such a long time ago,’ is an observation that invariably takes me to something said by Wijerupage Wijesoma, the irrepressible and self-effacing cartoonist who created witty, insightful and telling political commentary with a few lines and words for decades.

It happened more than twenty years ago when we both worked for Upali Newspapers. Wijesoma drew for both the Island and the Divaina. At the time I was writing a series of articles on people his age who had excelled in their chosen field. During the course of the interview, I asked him about his family. I wrote,  ‘he is also a family man, and has raised 6 children with his wife, Mallica Gunatilleke, whom he describes as a wonderful woman, who was always very supportive.’

And quoted him: ‘She was a good sport, and was willing to drop all her work and take off with me if I suggested some out of the ordinary expedition such as going to Horton Plains.’

He told me that she had passed away some 16 years previously.

‘A long time,’ I said.

Yes, that familiar response. His rejoinder wasn’t common.

 ‘It is not long for me,’ he said softly.

Sixteen years to a seventeen year old is almost all the time he’s been on this planet. Sixteen years to someone who is 64 is a quarter of his life. The true length of sixteen years or seventy five for that matter or rather perception of that duration depends on what’s being talked about and by whom.

My paternal grandmother died 33 years ago. At her funeral my father said, ‘today would have been my late sister’s fiftieth birthday.’ She had died when she was just 10 years old. He added, ‘It took me this long to understand how much I missed her.’  

He remembered.

‘The doctor misdiagnosed. She got worse. She was in Mother’s arms and simply said, ‘Ammi, mama yanawa (mother, I am going).’

How long is an hour? How many days are there in a year? Do we really know and even if we did, does it have the same meaning for two different people?

‘You will not be able to meet her as often from now on,’ someone told a friend who was much younger, again more than 25 years ago.  His friend responded, ‘I know how to turn moments into eternities.’

They both laughed.

Time is longer than life, some communities in Africa say and they are right. ‘Time is a coat,’ was the title of a Master’s Thesis written by a sociologist who studied the political economy of the garment industry, a line that resonates with Marx’s Labour Theory of Value.

Time is long. Sixteen years is long.

‘Not for me,’ Wijesoma said softly.

He took my breath away then. And each time I remember, I forget to breathe. 

 

 [This article was published in the Daily News under the weekly column title 'The Recurrent Thursday']