India, Nov. 16 -- Modern life has quietly divided time into two species: days one endures and days one awaits. Monday to Friday are spoken of as a stretch to "get through", while Saturday and Sunday are celebrated as islands of relief. The calendar looks innocent, yet the inner meaning we attach to its days reveals something grave about how we live. A society rarely questions the patterns it normalises; yet these patterns often contain the very clues to its distress.

The very distinction between weekday and weekend carries a warning. It means the weekend is being treated as a period of recuperation. And if the weekend is a time to recover, then the weekdays must have been a time of injury. Where rest is worshipped as escape, work has alr...