Place for the disorderly

I have to admit I am a rather disorderly person. To assert this quality, I have a little plaque hanging right by the computer monitor. It reads, ‘In an orderly world, there’s always a place for the disorderly.’ For a long time after I acquired this from my dear friend Hus Sain (as he writes his name) Mahmud of Jamaldinwali, Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, I added a postscript to it: ‘And you’ve reached it.’

No surprise then that my desk is usually a cluttered place. (And you should see the little cabinet where I keep the tools!) I clear the desk once every few months. It then lasts in some state of order for several weeks before reverting to its usual condition. Years ago friend Mike Boardman, when he and Carole lived in Lahore, would marvel at what he thought was singular and unique: ‘A desk measuring three feet by six feet which you have to clear to create a space as small as six inches to work on!’

Now I have a desk measuring two and a half feet by eight feet and things are much the same. But as we grow older, we change. I now get a little breathless working on a crowded desk after a few months which leads to the drill of cleaning it out periodically. When I engage in this exercise, all sorts of scraps of useless paper emerge from the disorder and I find myself wondering why on earth I ever saved them.

As I was shutting shop last night, I resolved to carry out a cleaning job today. So, first thing in the morning I transformed my desk. I now have to see how long it will last in this pristine condition. There is little hope that it will remain clear beyond the first day of June 2104.

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