Dipika Kohli
By Dipika Kohli
Time is our most precious resource: time does not come back. This is the topic that I think I return to, most often; I suppose it lines up with ‘kismuth,’ generally, too.
But when we talk about time how about mentioning what it means to experience it deeply?
What is, that is, time well spent?
I had hosted a conversation salon called “Now” in Bangkok ten years ago. The idea was to hear what people had to say about it, people whom I’d found on the internet and invited to be part of the ticketed event. It went splendidly, I quite enjoyed what these experts shared, and most importantly, I think, they had fun being there. This event was part of a series, ‘N.’ I hosted this set of conversations in Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Hanoi, and London. (I tried to do them in Helsinki and Singapore, but couldn’t quite work it up into reality, maybe because Finland and Singapore are places where people might not be excited to opt into something like, ‘Let’s just see who comes and make it up on the spot, together!’)
‘N’, or ‘16N’, as I called it, was going to be a sixteen-city series, for sixteen people apiece. Cities that have an ‘N’ in them. So I could host conversations that start with the letter ‘N’. I did ‘Normality,’ ‘Narrative,’ and ‘Noteworthiness,’ and ‘Now.’ (I know this is all very, very esoteric, but you can check it out, I’ll put a link at the end, if you are curious.) The reason I’m mentioning all this is a lot of things had to happen to lead up to the staging of the event, but the event itself was where the magic unfolded. This day-of experience, I felt, was where time went deeper, and it felt extremely well spent. Even if it cost me a lot to go places and invent things and make them happen. I’m glad I did. Money is a vector. But time. The time doesn’t come back.
Guess it’s part of my art-making; relational art, it’s called, someone informed me once, at one of these things.
Today, I have all these ways of hosting conversations, and some comfortable smoothness in connecting people with each other. I think it comes out of ‘N’ and other events that I’ve put together around here and elsewhere all this time. Yes, it took my time to go to those places and look for people to invite, and I often wonder about it. Why I was compelled, for example. But in those years and those days, I just was.
I think following your instinct and doing that which moves you just makes sense, for me. Somehow, and thankfully, I have encouragement to keep going from those near me, who will, I know, cheer me on.
A good time is when you’re with people who are enjoying themselves, I feel.
A good time is also when you’re in flow, writing or making something and feeling good about where you’re going. This can be physical movement, too, simply moving around in a way that flows nicely can make it feel like time is slowing down.
It’s okay to have off time, too. For sure we are off, at times.
Some of the stories I had planned for writing here today just aren’t flowing. How I went to Singapore and stayed in Little India and also over by Clarke Quay and met a hundred people in a fast ten days and what I found out and what they said and how it landed and how I learned about ‘kiasu’ culture on that trip and what that was like, and more.
But I can’t seem to wrap it together today. Thinking instead about time. Time and all the impressions from all the people I’ve met through all this time are starting to fall into place, somehow, making a kind of picture for me. I can see it now.
Time in general.
Freshness, brightness, a little bit of novelty each day in the form of a newcomer to the city you’ll meet at a networking event, say, or a new kind of food, or the season’s fruits. Mango, currently. The neighbors gave me mangoes the other day, six or something, in a plastic bag. ‘All? All of them?,’ I asked.
‘Yes, yes, take them.’
‘Wow! Thank you… That’s really kind of you.’
Writing all this now I’m remembering how I felt when I first got here, in this season. ‘Hot season,’ as they say. Warmth. The flowers. Yellows and all shades of reds and greens and more and more greens, plants and pots and shrubs and the occasional moments of happening upon tree-lined streets. This is nice. How it feels. To be here: in the right now.
Dipika Kohli hosts the occasional miniature party, ‘16N.’ See designkompany.com/16n
Dipika Kohli is an author who is based in Phnom Penh. Discover her books at kismuth.com and other projects at dipikakohli.com.
