Munir Niazi said, “I am always late”.
But the capitalists, industrialists, shopkeepers and traders of the today’s world wanted to correct the poet's “mistake”.
They introduced us to a new term — “ASAP: As Soon As Possible.” And they took it so far that today, even a 3 or 4 old child is sent to school , at an age when the only language he truly understands is love, affection, playfulness and smiles.
We force his playful mind to become a logical mind before its time, snatching away his games to teach him math—not the kind that connects him to the distance between the sun and the earth, but the kind that prepares him to be a shopkeeper or a manager who can serve industrial (read capitalist) needs.
When the Industrial Age began and management sciences were founded, people like Frederick Taylor introduced Time and Motion Studies—studying how long it takes for a man to lift an object from the right and place it on the left. Every second was to be measured, squeezed nd converted into profit on the balance sheet.
How about we change this ASAP to “As Slow As Possible”?
Just as Ray Bradbury showed in his novel “Fahrenheit 451”, a dystopian society in which driving slowly was forbidden. People were fined for it.
Someone asked, “Why can’t I drive slowly?” The answer was: “If you drive slowly, you will notice that the pink line running alongside you isn’t a line — it’s a fflower And once you realize that, you will fall in love with that flower, get lost in it, and you’ll no longer be an efficient or productive worker for society.”
That’s the fear — that slowness leads to awareness, and awareness takes you away from productivity.
That’s why, in earlier times, trains were linked with romanticism. In paintings, poetry, and novels — trains appeared as a symbol of journey and reflection. You could see the world outside, absorb it and reach your destination — slowly, beautifully, as slow as possible.
As the Sufis (Sufism is a mystical and philosophical approach in South Asia) say, “Tham tham ke turo nera”, translated as, “Walk slowly, my friend, walk slowly.” Because the one who rushes cannot see. If I take you on a bullet train, what will you see outside at 800 km per hour? Nothing. So, it’s ironic — we are living through all this.
Even T.S. Eliot criticized this in The Waste Land, repeating the haunting line: “Hurry up, please. It’s time.” But the Japanese found a beautiful cure for this speed. In their tea ceremony, preparing tea is treated as a spiritual act — almost like worship. In contrast, our tea is made “as soon as possible,” not “as slow as possible.” But tea takes time, to boil, to brew, to develop its soul. And in that slow act, one can talk, share stories, lighten sorrows, and let thoughts ripen.
This Japanese tea ritual stands completely opposite to our fast-food culture—where you drive up, pay at one window, and by the next, your meal is ready. The waiting time—where once people discussed politics, shared stories, recited poetry—is gone. Fast food steals from us the stories, the pauses, the moments of intimacy.
So yes, we may have reached our destinations faster, but we have lost the journey.
If you travel by bullet train, what will you see? What will you write poetry about? Only chaos, colors flying by so fast that nothing makes sense.
That’s why many romantic poets and painters loved trains, they captured that in-between space where the world moved slowly enough to be felt.
Today, major brands use “Just-in-Time” systems, where the sale of one item immediately triggers the production of another, eliminating the need for storage. Efficiency has reached a point where even waiting has become waste.
Maybe it's time we say, look at the tea. See how it teaches patience. How allows us to talk, to heal, to remember old sorrows, to reconnect. Now, no one even has time for that. Maybe the time has come to replace “As Soon As Possible” with “As Slow As Possible”. Maybe it’s time to discover a moment that makes one say, “Was this within me all along?”
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