Ofcourse it is! Can’t you see I’m lazing around? There’s no bus to catch or appointment to keep, it’s Saturday and a day of rest!
And then I look out, there’s a man at my window.
“Hello!” I shout, taken aback, “What are you doing there?”
But he couldn’t care less if I shouted or pulled the house down with my wild gesticulations, and then realize why he hasn’t seen me. The glass that comes between us, has advantage given to the person inside, I can see him, but he can’t see me.
So I look a little farther down, and understand he’s not clinging to my window, he isn’t someone from the floor above who’s decided to say goodbye to the world and is rushing past me on a freefall, well, he’s certainly not rushing, he seems stationary, and peering out find he’s pulling down the scaffolding that’s been round my building for nearly two years, with a year of the lockdown nearly making it a permanent feature. Yes, I even heard the courier chap ask one day, “Sir, you stay in the bamboo building?”
Ah well, finally it’s going to be the bamboo building no more, as Mr Man at my Window and his fellow men at other windows have started pulling them down.
But it’s Saturday!
I watch the men as they gingerly cut ropes that have grown so fond of my home, they decided to nearly make it their permanent abode. They slice them and for a moment till they slip onto the bamboo below, their lives hang precariously in a balance. Yes, one wrong placing of their bodies in the wrong direction could have them hurtling to the ground!
It’s Saturday, but some people don’t have one!
For a year the bamboos had rested waiting for him to return, and he had walked, no wearily trekked, with a mother on his shoulder, a baby in his arms, and a wife walking behind carrying their belonging in a plastic bag. He had trudged mile after mile away from cruel city that suddenly had no use for him, and a virus waiting to pounce on him.
And now he’s back, and suddenly seeing me, peering out, he grins. He’s happy, yes, he is, he has no idea who I am, but he knows it’s because of me and others in the building he has work.
He has work on a Saturday, and he’s happy, I have no work on a Saturday, and I look around for something to give me peace of mind.
Is it work, simple work I need, to make me grin like him?
And then I hammer at the keys of my old laptop, and suddenly feel like grinning. I see him peering in as we wave to each other.
It’s Saturday, and we have something in common; work..!
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Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
Yes Bob, Work is also an enjoyment. As an employee in a private school, due to pandemic throughout the year was stayed at home, really missed work and realised how privilege to be at work! Reff. Eccl 9:10
Because of pendamic we realise the importance of work in life.Sitting idle without doing any activity, can’t imagine.But people can remain without work happily.
Adam was given the joyful occupation of caring for the plants and naming the animals who must’ve been tame, loving and speaking the same language as him The balmy breeze blowing as he communicated with God was a peaceful, pure and practical past time. To keep his mind busy when it idled and became the devil’s workshop, God made him earn his living.
The poor know, no Saturdays Sundays or holidays !
The least a society can do is ensure the basic needs of the indigent.
The present day poverty is not due to
natural scarcity, it is imposed by the rich, to secure their positions.
It’s ironic that the hungry poor have fed famous authors like Victor Hugo , George Orwell, Charles Dickens and many others who plead their cause !
Still nobody can take away the privilege of the poor to be happy, healthy, unenvied and secure without a guard !
Fabulous!