It seems time has been stretched to the limits. It isn’t passing by. It is only eight-ten. Normally at this time, I would be doing something or the other with her, like playing a game or watching a movie or series. Or maybe even just lying on the bed. I feel as if I am cursed. If so, then it is a really bad one.

The point it drives through is crystal clear - we are so much dependent on technology and its products that it dictates how our lives go on a minute-to-minute basis. My phone is dead. There isn’t much to do there. I can play some of the offline games I have in it, scroll through the gallery, maybe go through the old chats and read them once again. These are only temporary solutions to the problem at hand. Without the internet, I will not be able to chat with anyone (if there is anyone left). I will not be able to gather any kind of information from the web. I will not be able to search for answers like I used to when I had them working. Google has ceased to exist and without it a lot of instant answers and solutions.

I can easily kill time by mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed. If I am caught up with all the latest updates, I just need to open the search page to be flooded by an infinite list of posts and videos. It doesn’t end. It will never end. That's how they are created - to keep you engaged throughout. When you are used to it, to the mindless scrolling and infinite options in front of you, how will you cope in a situation when all of it is suddenly unavailable? Will you be able to accept the drastic change it has caused in your life? Or will you succumb to it and let it play around with your head, subjecting you to feelings that were being powered by an algorithm? Why hasn’t anyone thought of a social media system in which everything is moderated? The content you see is limited, the likes and comments you can give are limited, the searches are limited, and everything is within bounds. Won't it push you to make mindful choices, select only what you really want, and appreciate things that really need to be appreciated? Will it not promote better quality because of a lack of quantity? I would always prefer to go for quality rather than quantity. Limitless as a concept is fine, but practically it is dangerous. There should be limits in place. Otherwise, how would you appreciate what you have in hand? Everything in this cosmos is finite. Why shouldn’t technology be so? Why can't it be designed to enforce sensible limits?

I know it doesn’t make any sense but this is something I strongly feel. I have cut down on my Instagram use a lot. I have unfollowed all those who don’t matter to me. I only get notifications and stories from my close friends. Because of my work pattern and the remote sites I work in, I go weeks without proper internet. In some sensitive locations, I have to surrender my phone. It becomes a forced detox on me. I am able to survive them. When I am come out of it, initially the fear of missing took over. I would go through the feeds of my friends and see what I missed. Nowadays that urge is also gone. There is nothing important I have missed. If there was one, I would have been notified of it by someone through any other means. There is a need to declutter our lives of all the anxiety-inducing stuff. Life is simple. It should remain as such.

I can write something to while away the time. Writing has always been therapeutic for me. It takes me to a blissful state. I am talking about casual writing, like letters. When I write them, I am wholly present in the moment. Sometimes I start it with the feeling of having much to say. But I end up without writing much. It seems what I had in mind has made it into paper in the least possible words. I don't prolong the mail. I wind it off. I don't want to push myself into writing for the sake of it. That defeats the purpose with which I had sat down. It also puts me in a different state of mind, which is quite opposite of what writing means to me. I know when to stop it when. I let the words flow when they are flowing. I stop when they are done.

Two decades ago, mobile phones were just entering the Indian market. They were costly to maintain. I remember the first mobile phone that my father bought for us. It was a basic one. The plans were costly. One gets charged for incoming calls as well. We took it instead of a landline. It served the purpose of calling. Beyond that, there was nothing much to it. It had a couple of games in it. I played them sometimes. Mom wouldn’t allow me to play for long as the battery gets drained quickly. Even though I had a video game console back then, playing on this new handheld device was a novelty. I don't think anyone would have thought two decades later this small thing that they held in their hands would rule their worlds.

That was the time of television and cable TV. It was the quintessential form of entertainment. Everyone had a TV. Most of them had a cable connection too. We killed time in front of it. Our meals could be easily fed to us if our favorite shows were airing as we ate. Television will never go out of fashion. It will keep evolving. It is basically a screen. And we are living in a world dominated by screens. With the advent of streaming services it has undergone, it owns its fair share of evolution. It is surely keeping itself in time. I can load a movie into a pen drive and plug it into the TV to watch its contents. It will provide me entertainment even in this direst of all hours.

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Black mirrors will surely keep us entertained. That is what I can make of all this. They are a part of our life, an integral part. And they are here to stay.

With the penetration of these black mirrors deep into our lives, we have resorted to a much more chilled-out, sedentary lifestyle. We have all the knowledge and resources we want in our hands. But do we really know how to put them to practical use?

In my current situation, I realize I need to depend on basic survival skills. I have to be concerned about food and water, shelter and clothing - the basics. Nothing else matters. I need to have them figured out before I can go around finding what has happened. I will have to move more. I will have to use force when needed and do things that would have been difficult for me in normal times. I need to switch to a version of myself that will adapt to my current scenario. It is going to be stripped of the comfort that had engulfed our lives in recent times.

Consider food. I need to preserve as much of it as I can. They are all going to get spoilt soon. I will have to depend on alternatives when it happens. Dry provisions will last for quite some time. Fruits and veggies will not. So will all the dairy products. Meat and fish products can be frozen and made to last for a long time provided they are kept frozen. Canned foods will stay. I can learn to make bread. I mean I know a part of it from the sourdough experiment I had done. I can take it forward from there. I can get an oven for myself from a shop. I know how to make rice. There will be plenty of rice and flour sacks in the supermarket. They will last for a lifetime. But I can't keep on having them forever. I will need to mix it up from time to time.

I will need to get some multivitamins too. I might go behind in some nutritional aspects because of the less variety. I will have to supplement them artificially. I am not worried about food. I know I can very well live on whatever meager things I can get. I have learned to live by eating what is needed for me. This has allowed me to keep my weight in check. I have seen people at my workplace consume more than what is needed. They do field work and they feel this is heavy labor. In fact, it is not. If you round up the whole day's activity, it might just come to an hour-long intense workout session. People don't realize this and end up with a belly.

My active lifestyle at my work site has contributed to my physique. There is a small belly. I think I won't be able to get it off. I don't work out for it. I might walk for an hour. Nothing more than that. If I get pumped up, I might do some planks and a few basic exercises. That's it. If needed I can get on a sprint and sustain it for a while. I can lift heavy stuff too.

Physically I am good to go. I can maybe start working out and be in better shape. I will be killing time too. Two birds with one stone. I am more concerned about my mental and emotional space over this period of time. It has been good till now. No problems whatsoever. The current situation is however very different from anything anyone would have undergone. No books or therapy can equip you with the tools to deal with this.

I need to keep myself occupied. That is the only solution I can think of now. It is definitely not a long-term one. I will run out of ways to be busy. What will I do then? I hope I can get to the bottom of this before such a situation arises.

On one of the corners, I see her mandala coloring book. I pick it up. I bought it a long time ago. But I never used it. I never felt like coloring in it. It was lying in my cupboard back in my hometown. I gave it to her when I saw her paint a picture for me when I was away for work. It was simple and sweet. She had a few coloring pens. She used them to color a couple of mandalas. They came out pretty good. She had clicked them and sent them to me last time. She does it when I go away for work to kill time and relax.

I browse through the pages. I come across a couple of completed ones. They are really beautiful. Then I come across a half-filled one. I remember her showing me this. It was one of the first mandalas to be colored in. She hadn’t finished it though. When she showed it to me I expressed my desire to finish it. That is why she left it. I didn’t put any effort to finish it though.

I pick up a couple of colors from the lot. She had colored them with shades of red, orange, yellow, and baby pink. I pick up yellow and blue. I don’t want to overdo it. She had done the inner part. I start from where she had left off. I take the blue sketch and fill in the pattern in a clockwise direction.

I complete it in my own time. I feel oddly relaxed. I decide to put off yellow for some other part of the mandala. I pick the orange sketch pen and proceed to color the next pattern with it.

I finish the mandala. It looks really good. I hope I did a good job in completing what she had started. I look at the time. It is five minutes to nine. Forty-five minutes had gone by without even realizing it. Forty-five minutes of peace and zen. Yes, I was in a zen state. I know I can get into it if I do something mindful. But I never take an effort toward it. I would rather kill time browsing mindlessly through my social media accounts rather than do something artsy and liberating.

I haven't wasted time not thinking of what to do tomorrow or how to come up with an explanation and a solution to this phenomenon. I needed time for myself. This was it. We all need time for ourselves, without which I don't think we can function properly. I feel much better than I was an hour ago. I guess I have rediscovered a way to remain sane.