My watch was clocking a melancholic time of my life, when one day it suddenly stopped ticking. Seeing it, I felt as if my life too had taken a long pause. Both were silent and so was I. I didn’t feel like getting my watch repaired till my life clocked a good time, so I just kept it away and forgot about it, till the day my mother was headed to the watchmaker to get her watch repaired.
“Don’t you have to get yours repaired too,” she asked. I said no. Just to go out of the house, I accompanied her. With sad footsteps, I followed her into the watchmaker’s shop. She gave her watch to him, but mine stayed on my wrist.
Blankly, I glanced at the watchmaker. He had a smile on his face. I wondered what was there to smile about in a world full of woes. I noticed that his smile was a calm one, rather than a happy one. His face looked perfectly calm. I had never seen a calmer soul, amid the chaos of the world. Even his twinkling eyes radiated calmness, as if he had found his oars to wade through the tribulations of life.
I realised what it was when instead of speaking, he gestured with his hands to ask mother about her watch. That moment, I realised that he couldn’t speak. He had waded through life wordlessly. I reflected on my sadness. I measured mine against his. My troubles were nothing compared with his woe. He couldn’t even put words to his lifelong grief. Still he had a calm smile on his face. If he could smile, so could I. If like me, he would wait for a good time to come in his life to get happy, then he would wait forever. Nothing was better than the present moment to be happy. Without saying a word, he taught me the meaning of life.
I gave my stopped watch to the silent watchmaker. He made my watch tick again. Life began again after the silent pause. The timekeeper set the time of my watch to the present moment, teaching me to live in the moment. He handed my mended watch back to me with a smile and by making a thumbs-up sign with his hand. I smiled. Just like the watch, sometimes, life too needs a mend. He had silently mended both. With the ticking watch back on my blithe wrist, as I walked out of his shop, with cheery footsteps, the words of a poem echoed in my heart, “Oh God, forgive me when I whine.”
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