A week ago, the preparations for our upcoming holiday were on. Today, we are getting ready to head back home. Time has just gone.

The day my son was born is clear as air in my memory. It wasn’t that long ago. It seems like just the other day….

Its puzzling – this thing called ‘time’. Moments drag on seemingly forever but days and weeks fly past in a jiffy.

“What is time?
What is this thing that goes on without pause?
If it did not pass,
Then where could it have been?
It must have been somewhere.
It has passed.
So where is it now?
It must be somewhere.
Where did it come from? Where did it go?
Where did the process start? Where will it end?
What is time?

These events
Incidents
Conflicts
Every grief
Every joy
Every torment
Every pleasure
Every smile
Every tear
Every song
Every scent,
It may be the pain of a wound
Or the magic of a tender touch,
Or lonely voice or cries around;
Success and failures assailing the mind;
The upheavals of care, the tumult of the heart.
All feelings
All emotions
Are like leaves
Floating on the surface of the water.
As they swim along
Now here, now there,
And now they disappear,
Gone from sight, but
There must be something
Flowing along.
What is this river?
Which mountains has it come from?
To what sea is it going?
What is time?

Sometimes I think
When I see trees from a moving train,
It seems they go in the opposite way.
But in reality the trees are standing still.
So can it be
That all our centuries,
Row upon row, are standing still?
Can it be that time is fixed,
And we alone are in motion?
Can it be that in this one moment
All moments,
All centuries are hidden?
No future
No past.
What has gone by
Is happening now.
I think –
Can it be possible
That this is true,
That we are in motion?
We pass by,
And what we imagine
Is moving
Is really motionless.
Moving, not moving?
Whole or divided?
Is it frozen,
Or is it melting?
Who knows?
Who can guess?
What is time?”

– Javed Akhtar