Aliya Naseer Farooq
Evolution is development, change, modification, growth. Change, they say, is the only constant. Life is in a state of flux and each day is a new beginning.
Take, for example, my ‘night stand’. It was the bedside table or the side table in my day. Not only has the nomenclature evolved but its styling and content has also transformed. In my younger days, my bed side table was a tiny little thing with a small drawer and a section beneath it that closed with an equally small door.
Possessions were limited. A few seasonal clothes in the wardrobe, a couple of dresses for weddings and school uniforms. Life was simpler, like my bedside table. The closed section had a wooden box full of erasers of all hues and aromas. Aromatic erasers were a thing in my day and I collected all sizes and shapes. Bright pink strawberry shaped ones smelt like strawberries or what I thought strawberries smelt like. I collected these for the longest time till one summer I opened the box to find my collection congealed into a large unsightly mass.
At its most occupied, that bedside table would boast a book that I was reading before I drifted off to sleep. My ‘night stand’ now, is huge compared to that miniature version I had as a young girl. It is large with a special drawer – chock full of useless stuff; receipts, bills, prescriptions, subscriptions, old cell phones, batteries, chargers, medicines. Basically all things we keep in order to have when we need them and can’t find when we do. A word of caution, if and when you gather enough courage and stamina to empty out the whole mess in a bag to throw it away, the very next day you will be asked to look for the receipt of a gadget or find out which medicine the doctor had prescribed for a certain malady last year. Murphy’s law!
To be honest, I am going to sleep in that bed next to my night stand. I should, ideally, switch off the lamp and go to sleep. My bedside clock is one useful item, if and when I remember to replace its batteries, which is quite rare. Recently, I added a bottle of saunf, a small vial of perfume and a diffuser. It is becoming a repository for all things that are passing through in my life; a saunf phase, diffusers phase, candle phase etc.
Some things in life will never make sense and that is fine. After all, isn’t that an essential part of evolving, growing and becoming.
Another apt example can be technology. Previously, a phone meant landline. The heavy-duty black dial phone resting ostentatiously on its tall white wire stand or a cane one, if your parents had bohemian leanings. Placed strategically in the hall way with absolutely no chances of privacy. Any call outside of the six phone numbers listed neatly on the phone book lying on top of the fat directory were assumed to be wrong numbers and that was it. Look at your phone now. It is a cell phone. It is in your hand, in your pocket, in your bag, in your car. You can make a call while you are out on your evening walk. You can call an emergency number if and when you need help. You can call your friend to rescue you from a particularly boring party. Cell phones, smart TVs, smart watches are a game changer. They have definitely enhanced our quality of life and made things so much easier, whether they have made us more smart, remains debatable.
So many other examples of change and evolution. What are now called hair extensions were once called wigs, lip colour was lipstick, blush on was rouge, compact was face powder, perfume was scent, rugs were carpets.
” A rose by any other name
Would smell as sweet.”
We do evolve. We grow. We become. What does not change is dead. One of the challenges of relationships is also to grow alongside your partner, your friend, your child. Change is never easy but it is inevitable and the sooner we make peace with it the better it is.
Wishing you all a peaceful 2021. May we continue to evolve, grow, become.
Aliya Naseer Farooq is a freelance writer. She has written columns for The Nation and The Frontier Post. After a decade of teaching English, she is now back to writing, her first love.
