Suppose you are in a departure lounge of an international airport and waiting for the announcement for boarding the flight. And then comes an announcement that the flight will be delayed for a couple of hours. If you are alone, how you are going to spend two more hours? It is a boring time.
Go for a coffee, read magazines, see anyone smiling at you so that you can start talking.
Sometimes time doesn’t want to pass because you are counting. On the other hand, when you are taking a test or you are with your best friend, time flies at a supersonic speed. You are driving and the next rest area is another 30 miles and you need a wash room. It seems like that 30 miles is far away.
A couple of months back, The Dispatch published one of my columns titled, “Life as a minority.” Ironically, all on a sudden, the minorities in my native country came under attack by the majority. The media was vocal, publishing images of the distressed, pale faces of helpless minority people. I was overwhelmed.
I sent the same article to an influential English daily, and they published it immediately.
In response, I got an email from Sweden. The reader of my article was distressed about the oppression of the minority in Bangladesh. Though we belong to different faith, we feel the same way.
We’ve became email-friends. He has invited me to visit Lund, the southern city of Sweden. My friend described, Sweden, as a welfare state; he wrote about how good Sweden’s retirement and medical benefits are.
When you are a senior citizen, that’s what you discuss mostly. My friend writes in the most recent email, “We are getting old and waiting at the departure lounge. And we must not bother about small problems of health so much.”
Yes, indeed, we all, especially those of us who have lived three quarters of our lifetime; we are in the departure lounge waiting for the announcement.
This is true for everyone, be it politicians, businessmen, priests or preachers and poor and rich alike. Why should we start fighting while sitting at the departure lounge? Why can’t we be kind to one another?
I don’t know if that will affect the speed of passing time, but I do know it will make the time passing more pleasant.
Jiben Roy, a native of Bangladesh, teaches chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at Mississippi University for Women. His email address is [email protected].
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