There was once a TV on the wall.
Under it lived a Japanese monk with his disciples. Legend has it that he was a royal descendent of the great kingdom called the “Bombay Company” known for world renowned art and artisans. No one knows the whereabouts of this kingdom now. Some say it involuted and dissolved into itself while others say it is now a wondrous kingdom under the seas. But no one has ever visited it since its glory days on earth.
The monk was happy in his current abode and had made himself quite comfortable in his new home for the last 15 years or so. The quietude of suburbia was perfect for the demeanor he sought to emulate.
He silently watched the comings and going of the home from his vantage point. When people cheered their favorite team on tv he mistook it to be a cheer for him. When people cried in anguish at scene on a SunTV serial, he thought he’d done something wrong. A witness to family gatherings, the highs and lows, the celebrations and sad good byes, he was happy to be a part of it all. Although he thought no one paid any special attention to him, I often sat gazing into his sage eyes, imbibing some of his immovable calm.
Then one day,
While the family was busy to-ing and fro-ing to the hospital where the old matriarch was recovering from a bout of pneumonia, the unimaginable happened.
The TV that had regaled the family for over a decade with games and movies, with Netflix, Prime, Apple plus and no less, felt it’s Time coming to a close. It had stayed on as valiantly as it could, pressing against the straining nails. But the plain old drywall was soon no match for the tug of Time. The Time that arrives for one and all. The Time that spares no one. The Time that can never be summoned or dismissed at anyone’s will but its own. The Time that comes for everyone – when it’s their time – no sooner, no later.
And so it was with the TV. It’s Time hath come. It wrenched itself from the support of the dry wall, twisting away from the post. The nails that had held it for 15 odd years were no match for the torque of Time.
The monk!! The Monk!! Was all the falling TV could think of in its now rapidly fractionating head. What of the Monk? he was planted right below in its inevitable path of destruction. Surely the frail old monk made of mere ceramic was no match for the 50 pound tv falling with such momentum?
What was the TV to do? It couldn’t freeze it’s fall. The pull of gravity was as frightening as it was exciting. As it fell, a vision of the monk’s hat came to its mind, for that was all it could see all those years from its perch above. A hat it recalled, at an angle as obtuse his thinking. An angle that saved the monk from disaster.
The TV made one last attempt to jettison itself so it slid down the monks hat. The impact slammed the monk’s head against the wall so much so it made a hole in it but none on him. Shaken but standing, the monk stayed at his obtuse angle against the wall. He knew the Time had come for the TV but felt no sadness. Just a void where it once stood.
Down fell the TV. With a thud. A thud loud enough to shake the man of the house out of his wits. He ran to the room searching for the source. And that how he stood as sole witness to what Time had wrought on the TV.
As the human rushed into the room, he stood transfixed for a moment to take in the damage. The TV on the floor. The shattered green planter.
The Monk!! The Monk! As the human rushed to straighten him up, the monk stayed still, stoic and calm. Limbs intact, bird untouched, cane unbent. Just a little scrape in the hat. Phew.
And what of the others you ask? His two disciples, the little mighty elephant, the laughing Buddha and the little old Buddhist soul? They had been his companions through the years. All fine. Yup all fine. A bit dusty but all fine.
The lifeless TV left on the curb disappeared the next trash pick up day and found it way to nirvana in the junk yard.
Its lcd screen shattered into a myriad of abstract lines, its mortal remains mere shreds of glass and steel, it lay buried under the pasta jars, monitors well beyond their heyday and tangles of wires and obsolete boxes of Netgear devices for evermore.
And it’s soul? Its soul found its way back into a newly hatched smartphone.
* Seat 11A in the title refers to the seat number of the miraculous sole survivor on the Air India flight disaster on June 12, 2025. He sat in exit row seat 11A and escaped with mere bruises while all his fellow passengers perished in the fire.
Super expression in an interesting manner of an otherwise slightly uncomfortable event…to think from the perspective of an inanimate object and give it life is creation in true form…
Thank you for your kind words, Geetha!!