500 words, 2 minute read.
In the picture is the original written note, surfaced in the bi-weekly Global Writing Pod exercise some of us friends practice to support each other in writing with focus.
Key words: Play, time, learning, living, leisure, compartments, reality, labour, productivity, childhood, colonisation, mono-culture, industrialisation, indigeneity, toys, tools, oppression, internalised oppression
When we segregate a specific hour or moment in the schedule of our children for play, what happens? What does it mean to have a dedicated time to play? How does that time differ from the other times in the day for the children? Why do we do that? How does that frame a person's understanding of time and life? Is it a consulted segregation?
What is the character transformation expected between a playtime and otherwise?
What is it preparing us for?
How much of the school structure depends on the concept of time division between play and non-play periods? Or the segregation of the day into periods with different characters?
When did we start these compartments in our period? In your days? In our life? And how does this pass on across generations?
Do these compartments reflect in our time segregation between professional life and personal life?
A way of seeing time that can be compartmentalised into different realities. A duality of existence. Segregation of the self into two or more un-whole parts.
The concept of a clock, segregated hours and productivity
What does it mean to ourselves when we wake up in the morning, and watch a clock to decide what is meant to be done? To feel awake or to fall back to sleep?
Who are we regulating ourselves against? Who is the regulator? Why do we regulate ourselves?
What is the history of clocks, clock towers and hourly bells?
The clock tower in Kathmandu!
The clock tower in Dharan !!
Why are clock towers the symbol of British Culture? What does the clock tower do to us? Where was the clock tower born, and how did it become a symbol for civilisation? Why did the clock tower become a sign or indicator of British-hood?
Western concept of time, concept of life and living, or civilised and a life worth living.
A disciplined mind.
Afterthought: What are than distractions and impulses?
I now remember that the first gifts or the most expected obvious gifts from 'Laure dais' (Soldiers employed abroad, like British Gurkha) were watches, a bag full of watches; the clock tower self-tied to our wrist and hand.
The illustration is of a toy watch. In Nepali text, it is written 'Aalu Ghadi'. Its literal meaning is 'Potato Watch', used to state a false toy watch which doesn't show real time. The second illustration is of a kid's hand with a sketch of a watch. As a child growing up, I saw most children would draw watches on the wrists of younger kids as play. I had it drawn by adults with pen and markers on my wrist as a baby, and drew it to children while engaging with them.
