While the Music plays?
There are so many games we played as children that probably belonged to a different decade.
Musical chairs. Passing the parcel.
Simple games, repeated at almost every birthday party, school celebration and family gathering. Games that had very little to do with skill and almost everything to do with luck and timing.
And yet, every single time, we played with such deep faith that luck would be on our side this time.
When the music started, we moved around the chairs with that strange mix of excitement and anxiety.
When the parcel began travelling from one pair of hands to another, we passed it on quickly, almost nervously, hoping it wouldn’t stop with us.
And then there was always that moment.
The music stopped.
The parcel stopped.
And suddenly, the game was no longer about movement.
It was about whether you happened to be holding the chair, or the parcel, at precisely the right moment.
I think life has been feeling a little like that lately.
There is, objectively, so much to be grateful for. So much beauty. So much love. So many reasons to pause and say, look at this life.
And yet, somewhere underneath all that gratitude, there is this quiet anxiety.
A constant awareness of the moment at hand, while keeping one eye on the next.
As if we can somehow prepare ourselves for what might happen next.
The news doesn’t help.
People are dropping dead -young and old, sometimes without warning. People are losing jobs with no notice and no Plan B.
People are fighting systems they should never have had to fight in the first place.
People are dealing with natural disasters, or what we are increasingly forced to call man-made ones.
And then there are the rest of us, sitting at traffic signals, impatient and restless, trying to get somewhere on time.
Everyone seems to be moving. Everyone seems to be waiting for something.
And perhaps that’s why yesterday felt so overwhelming.
We had an early Onam celebration at my sister’s home.
Nothing extraordinary happened.
And perhaps that was the extraordinary part.
To live in the same city as my sister.
To send and receive love in the form of dabbas whenever we feel like it.
To know that my son has an aunty and uncle who are always ready to spoil him.
To have the comfort of knowing she is around; close enough to call, meet, drop in, or simply exist alongside.
These are such ordinary yet extraordinary privileges.
And yesterday, sitting in her beautiful home while Onam unfolded around us, I found myself taking it all in.
I wasn’t talking much.
I was tired. A little overwhelmed.
And very aware of how lucky I was.
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It felt almost like sitting in the chair when the rules of the game say I shouldn’t be holding on to it forever.
Because that’s the thing about these games.
You never really know when the music will stop.
You can be completely immersed in the moment, laughing and moving and enjoying yourself.
And then suddenly, the music stops and you have to move.
Maybe that’s what has been weighing heavily on my heart lately. Not that I am unhappy. Quite the opposite. Perhaps I am just becoming painfully aware of how much I love what I have.
How long do we have in the same city?
How long do we have these ordinary, beautiful routines?
How long do we have the people we casually assume will always be there?
How long do we even have?
I don’t know when the music will stop.
None of us do.
And perhaps the only thing we can really do is keep moving while the music plays.
Not because we are certain the chair will still be ours when it stops.
But because, for this moment, it is.
And perhaps that is what gratitude really is.
Not the certainty that we get to keep everything.
Just the awareness that, right now, we have it.
So maybe I will stop worrying about the next time the music stops.
Just for today.
Today, my sister is in the same city.
Today, dabbas are travelling between our homes.
Today, my son is being spoiled by his aunty and uncle.
Today, there is Onam, there is family, there is love, there is a chair.
And the music is still playing.
As children, we worried about finding a chair when the music stopped.
Perhaps growing up is realising that the music itself was always the part worth enjoying.
