The day was Saturday, time was afternoon. I was at the barber shop close to my house. Barber shops in India are always an enriching experience if you keep your ears open.
You will either come out with a few great songs to add to your playlist which belong to a time decades before you were born, or you will come out with questions of existentialism that might either put you in a sullen slumber or give you a burst of momentary enlightenment.
Barber shop visits are a gamble. They depend on how the barber was feeling that particular day. You’re allowing someone to work with sharp objects dangerously close to your face and neck. The thoughts you might walk away with involve similar risks.
There was no music in the barber shop that day. Just a South Indian movie playing on a small television set.
The barber evidently had something on his mind. The outlet for what was in his mind happened to be a friend of his who dropped by at the shop.
It is fascinating how people almost always have someone around to speak to. I do not recall ever having sat in an auto where the rickshawer was not on a call with friends, family, or lover. The barber shop is no exception, at least this one. I’ve not come across a visit where the barber had no friends at his shop whom he could talk to.
The barber told his friend while applying citrus infused shaving foam that he was looking to move his shop elsewhere owing to a financial debt. He clarified further that the debt was negligible but stressed him out, as opposed to the time when he had a debt about 15 times the current debt but felt no stress. Growing up and aging was blamed for this, some things never change, only we do.
He then told his friend about the anecdote of an old lady who’d come to his shop asking for money and was kind enough to not ask for money when there were customers present, only to wait and come back when the barber wasn’t busy. The old lady would ask for money for her grandchildren, as her son and daughter-in-law had passed away.
He recalled this one instance where the old lady told him that she had broken her chappal, and the barber gave her hundred rupees. He said recalling this, “Apni khud ki maa ka aisa hota to karte hi na, ye bhi to maa saman hi hai.”
He then narrated an offer he had to open a shop in a remote village. The friend asked why is he not taking it up. His answer was, “Abhi papa saath rehte hai, vo chale jayenge fir to haridwar jaake sanyas bhi le lu koi badi baat nahi hai.”
It led me to wonder. What made him keep going? Even after he discussed the hypothetical situation of having no responsibilities or people to take care of, his plan thereafter was to become an ascetic. His last resort still involved living.
Life with difficulty still beats no life at all. A difficult life clouded with debt and responsibilities, and even after it all, his furthest vision lay in Haridwar.
Even in that moment, he was opening up to a friend. He had people around to help him keep going. The connections we all build, like a chain and a link. One person breaks and the whole chain gets disturbed.
The father of the barber might possibly have had struggles of a similar nature but chose to keep moving and pushing because he had his son to take care of. His son now is in the shoes of the caregiver. The roles have reversed, but the role of the caregiver also gives a person strong reasons to live.
While his qualms may appear to be universal, his answers might not be. Society and family might also have an opposing effect. Everything that depends on people afterall is out of your realm of control, resulting in equally possible positive and negative outcomes.
The question of what pushes a person to keep living raised several other questions in my mind. From moving in the direction of what makes one live, I came across polar opposite questions. What even compels someone to commit suicide? And if the reasons are so strong, why are not all of us committing suicide?
The barber gave me questions, but the pursuit of answers made me wind back to an automatic watch I bought in 2016. This was my first time learning that different types of watch movements existed.
The watch came in a black box that said, ‘What makes you tick?’. Minimal packaging. Whoever designed it deserves a round of applause. It has been 10 years, the box probably no longer exists in my closet. The question it asked never left. I do not know the answer, never have and probably never will, but the presence of the question itself is a mark.
Perhaps there is no answer. But the question rightfully imposes on you the hypothesis that there is something out there which makes you tick. What it may be can change from time to time or simply not be known to you. The question itself matters more than the answer.
When you open the box, you come across a watch which reveals to you the machinery it comprises of and how it works. An automatic watch is an impressive machine for it comprises of hundreds if not thousands of extremely tiny parts, all stacked on one another in such a way that movement of one leads to movement of another. So it goes.
One single component losing its movement for a plethora of reasons that exist renders the watch incapable of its function. While the coexistence and codependency of these tiny parts add up to a beautiful rhythm signifying the passage of time, it is important to remember that one cog not moving enough ends everything.
Sometimes there might not be an issue with a part of the watch leading it to stop. But the simple reason of exhaustion. The watch, when in movement coils itself and keeps showing the correct time. It stops when the power reserve runs out.
Life is about movement, just moving. There may be moments when movement comes to a halt, but that does not necessarily mean an irretrievable breakdown. What needs to be done then is winding the watch, setting of the time again. It is a minor inconvenience but better than no movement.
When a watch stops working, one goes to the watchman and gets it repaired. Let it lie around much and the parts become rusty or the hands get loose and fall off. My mother tells me it is a bad omen to keep a non-working watch and while I do not agree with her superstition, I agree that it must be made to work again at the earliest.
This is why the cessation of the tick, be it in a watch or the pulse underneath the watch, will always be a scandalous affair. It is simply so unnatural and out of the ordinary.
I once read that life on dear planet earth is so ubiquitous that microbes live thousands of metres below. There is life inside rocks too. Life is everywhere on planet earth. Voluntarily ending life would be the anomaly.
While typing the last paragraph I accidentally typed heart instead of earth, and beautifully they’re anagrams.
Earth ticks because hearts tick.
Not only is suicide a scandalous affair, it is also extremely absurd and sudden. The suddenness is because whether to live or not is a question, a problem in itself.
I often think about what goes inside the mind of an individual who is determined to end it all, specifically in the moment they are about to end it all.
The only plausible outcome I can assume is that nothing goes on in the mind of someone about to end it. Void, darkness, an abyss.
It is reminiscent of a total solar eclipse. It is anticipated for months. Builds up over time. Lasts mere minutes. That is the closest analogy I can think of.
Just like a solar eclipse, if a person can pass through those minutes of darkness, there might lie a bright light. A bright light bound to last a long time for how infrequent solar eclipses are.
Unfortunately, when the darkness prevails and engulfs a person, that possibility remains a what if.
Life, or the lack thereof, does not need an answer. It is not a question in the first place. The only thing that feels universal is that we humans possess a zeal that makes us want to live by default. Continuation is the standard.
Going back to the root of the question, I realise that the barber gave me answers before the question even arose. The debts, responsibilities and the pain of life remained as it is. Even the farthest possibility of an alternative life was ultimately life. Continuity of life is something one questions only after going out of the way.
The crux of life is in continuation rather than in meaning. We are like moths with our lights being our reasons to live. Every moth has a different light it clings to. It passes stuck to the light. The moths attraction to the light outlives it.
Substack ke Camus sahab
OMG the photos look so yummy