Time has snatched away life of Matanhy Saldanha one of Goa’s greatest sons of the soil, a jewel in BJP’s crown, in a span of minutes without any warning. The ‘messiah of the masses’, the man who throughout his life fought many battles to obtain justice for the common man, could not fight with those ghostly, dark midnight hours and then finally gave up. He did not know that bad times lurked ahead of happier times for him (thumping victory in assembly polls and subsequently obtaining the rank of cabinet minister).
‘Tough time doesn’t last, tough men do’. Matanhy lived to this dictum throughout his life. The man saw tough times on number of occasions during his pro- people agitations, and lasted. But that fateful night, the time was ruthless. Life is real (in the practical, not spiritual sense), and time is a relative term. Einstein’s theory of relativity confirms this. Time was not invented; but the clock was invented for our convenience. We cannot measure time in the absolute sense. It is only a perception, an illusion, because we have no sense organs, like smell, taste etc., to detect it.
And yet our life is intricately interwoven by time. Life and time is intertwined. In our fast paced life, our all programmes are time bound. It’s a race against time. With most the sophisticated gadgets at our disposal, we should have been more relaxing than our ancestors. But ironically we are hard pressed for time! ‘I have no time’ is commonly heard phrase nowadays.
One cannot deny the fact that tremendous advancement in every sphere during past two decades was due to our hard work and struggle. In today’s world, time is money. The quality of life has definitely improved manifolds. And yet time management has become a tricky problem. To find time for oneself (for creative activities, meditation, sports etc.,) and have some leisure time, is an art. And though its easier said than done, many restless souls (though not workaholics) find it difficult to do this balancing act and end up ultimately suffering from stress and various stress disorders and anxiety neurosis. That explains the mushrooming of time, stress and business management gurus and counselling centres.
Other areas where time plays a crucial role in our life are sports or any games where one has to overpower the opponent in stipulated time. In sprints for example it may be even a fraction of second and is counted by stop watch. Then again during the CET( common entrance test) only those three crucial hours decide your future course of life. So many times we wait in search of good times ahead. But as T. S. Eliot says ‘just like we do not go in search of bad times, it comes in any way. So also we need not go after good times. It will also come!’
Our life is shaped over a period of time. Time makes man mature (never perfect!). Time heals all wounds-mental as well as physical! Sometimes we are bored and feel that time doesn’t move and then to kill time we kill flies! But on another occasion we say ‘ time flies’ especially when we go down the memory lane.
Coming back to our dear late Mr. Matanhy, a big vacuum has been created by his sudden demise. Time and tide waits for no man. How Mr. Parrikar fills up this gap and carries forward his legacy and also how he takes his BJP cart ahead, only ‘ time’ will tell!
