Date: 19/08/2026
All Rights Reserved by the Author
There was a man in our neighbourhood who seemed to have mastered one extraordinary skill:
doing absolutely nothing.
Every afternoon, he sat in a chair outside his house, watching people pass by.
One day, someone asked him, “Don’t you have anything to do?”
He smiled.
“Of course I do.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The questioner laughed.
But the man continued sitting there, completely untroubled.
After a while, children began joining him.
Then a neighbour brought tea.
Someone else brought a newspaper.
Before long, the supposedly idle chair had become the busiest meeting place in the lane.
Nobody had planned it.
Nobody had organised it.
People simply discovered that sitting together without having anywhere urgent to go could be rather pleasant.
Perhaps we have forgotten that sometimes.
Not every minute needs to be productive.
Some minutes are simply meant to be lived.
Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile
