The Pangs of
Waiting
(The following piece was written
while waiting for a friend’s letter from Islamabad.)
The tedium of waiting needs no introduction. Every
one goes through it, yet every one would like to
rebut it, as it is slightly demeaning, reeks of
helplessness and shows we are not fully in command
ourselves. Of course we are not, but few would admit
that.
The pain and seeming endlessness of waiting begins
at cradle, goes through many permutations, assumes
various disguises but is always as native to us
as our breathing. But, nobody is proud of it, except
Urdu poets. Pick up the compendium –devan-
of any Urdu poet from Wali Dakhani and Qutubshah
to Naser Kazmi and Ahmad Faraaz, you will find a
good number of couplets portraying the pathos of
separation from or the throes of waiting for the
beloved. Here are some examples.
Jab tera intezar
hota hai
Aur dil beqarar hota hai (Mir)
Uss kay efai-e-ahd
tak na jeye
Umr nay hum say bewafai ki (Mir)
Yeh na thi hamari
qismat kay visal-e-yar hota
Agar aur jetay rahtay yahi entezar hota (Ghalib)
Umr-e-draz mang key
la’aye thay char din
Du arzu mein kat gai du intezar mein (Zafar)
Mer ker bhi ayegi
yeh sada qabr-e-joosh say
Baidard mein nay tujhko bhulaya naheen hanooz (Josh)
Western culture
has taken care of this particular problem of the
Urdu poets, of the East in general, through its
system of dating. The age of romance and of courtship
came to an end in the West once speed was accepted
as the essence of almost all facets of life. Speedy
liaisons and their speedy breakups became the norm
with all their attendant complications. Quick relationships,
fostered further over the past decade by the Internet,
have benefited mainly the radio and TV talk shows
providing grist for their mills. The quick fix of
physical urges has, more often than not, spawned
numerous heartaches and psychological ailments.
Apart from its role in gender relations, waiting
takes many other forms. There is the angry waiting,
the plaintive waiting, and the almost cheerful waiting
in which we believe for certain that the phone call
or the letter will come presently. (Had it come,
this column wouldn’t have seen the light of
day).
Do women wait more than men do? Yes, I think so.
They suffer nausea and wait for nine long months
to give birth to new life and the source of new
thrills and expectations.
Men wait too. They wait for the promotion; they
wait for the prize; they wait for the income tax
refund. They wait with much libido for the opportunity,
be it in politics or in business, to strike a blow
to vanquish their competitor or rival. Very often,
the strike seems to be more impassioned than the
very principle about which they are debating.
Prayer itself is a form of waiting but fortified
with a glimmer of faith and perhaps of hope. For
those who pray or chant with great perseverance,
there is the suggestion that their waiting has been
converted into purposefulness.
As already mentioned, we do not wait for love only;
we wait for money, we wait for the weather to get
warmer or colder; we wait for the power shortages
to end (they don’t, only the utility bill
goes up). We wait for the city plumber to come and
fix the busted water main (he doesn’t); we
wait for a friend to speak to some city official
to pressure the water supply wing (he doesn’t
either).
We wait for our hair to grow (some more fall). We
wait for our children/grandchildren outside the
school (they prefer to play soccer). We wait for
this or that medical test, and we wait for the pain
in the back to ease (it persists despite the ‘miracle
rub’). We wait to visit the green fields of
the countryside for their fresh air and the warmth
of the country folks (they look suspiciously at
you). Then, we wait for the train or the bus to
ferry us home to the city to our props, our own
chair, our own bed and our own habits.
We wait for dreams, then we wait to be hauled out
of our dreams and wait for dawn, the routine, placid
breakfast, the first ring of the phone, the advancing
day, the rush and hectic activity and the prospect
of a relaxed evening and soothing sleep.
Back home in Pakistan, waiting has a touch of masochism
indoors, takes on a martial turn outdoors. We join
the army of waiting people to cross the street,
to catch a bus. Every catch-able bar or projection
on the bus, we find, has some one already hanging
by it. The driver therefore doesn’t stop to
take on another batman.
If you happen to drive down there in your own car,
you have to keep going in circles to find a vacant
parking space. You discover that a parking space
is a place where a car is already parked. If you
want to take a taxi, you have to wait for hours
as a taxi is a cab which is almost always occupied
by passengers.
Waiting for a taxi is one thing, but waiting for
a friend is quite a different experience. There
is no dearth of friends who are always late; time
is not a factor that matters to them. One wonders
what matters!
I used to endure it, but I no longer can for more
than a few minutes: corrupted by the norm of punctuality
in the US, I suppose. Ten minutes and I feel an
implosion, twenty minutes and it is an explosion.
Karachiites enjoy keeping their guests waiting for
hours at marriages and valimas. They may be believing
in the old adage that those who wait get the reward,
haste makes waste. If you point out that the early
bird gets the worm, they retort: ‘Who wants
to eat the worm?’
The Karachiwalas are so persistent in their tradition
of keeping the guests waiting that even the bursts
of automatic weapons do not make them rush through
a function.
Fishermen are the best at waiting. You see them
on the banks of lakes and dams, perched on their
haunches on uncomfortable boulders, rod and line
motionless in the water, with the contemplativeness
of cows chewing the cud.
An inmate of a mental asylum peeps out of his window
to find a man in a boat fishing in the adjoining
lake. The inmate asks:
How long you been fishing?
Four hours.
How many did you catch?
None.
Man, you sure are on the wrong side of the lake!
The famous wit, Dr. Samuel Johnson, has described
a fishing rod as a long pole with a line, hook and
bait on side and a fool on the other.
Waiting for a friend’s letter puts one in
the fisherman’s boat with Dr. Johnson’s
fishing pole in hand. Evidently, one cannot force
the hearts and minds of other people to do what
we want them to do at the precise moment we want
it done. We can only wait despite, as mentioned
at the outset, this striking as demeaning and reflective
of our helplessness. We have to put up with the
pangs of waiting, as there is no alternative to
it.
