Conversations about Franz Kafka's The Trial often lead to discussions on the activity of Waiting. Often reading Kafka itself is like undergoing a waiting exercise for a 'probable' triumph of knowledge, only to realize it never was perhaps designed as such, and that there is knowledge in waiting itself. The 'waiting' theme/trick/idea, quite explicitly so, then can be seen in Beckett's work and also in Ha Jin's novel entitled "Waiting : A Novel" - reading them, it appears that waiting can become synonymous with almost leading life itself - the absurdity of mindless waiting becomes a joy - the reader's joy of reading it has to do with, at least to some extent, on the bet that perhaps the character/person doing the waiting enjoys him(her)self too. There are others too - that charming writer of nothingness Javier Marías who through sleights and diversions arrests time, Milan Kundera who through his unbearably light novels meditates on where the pleasures of slowness have gone. And my two beloved philosophers - Paul Virilio who has dedicated his life to studying speed and Shiv Visvanathan who in some of his inimitable newspaper columns has asked us to re-feel "boredom".
S.K. caught me looking at this painting as I was circling through these thoughts and yet one can agree that waiting is not a joy always - the impatience of it as one sees in this painting. A tram or a train is yet to arrive, it has been hours in the line for bread, one cannot wait for a lover's next kiss, one cannot wait to see God...and yet we do like to wait sometimes, we do like to eat slowly sometimes if not drive slowly...we do like to get bored sometimes and not give in to switching on the T.V., we like to watch melodrama sometimes and not Action films.
