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Is the world still a big place? Time to adjust our perspective
SPICE OF LIFE: I don’t remember much of how we fared at the game but all of us felt a heightened sense of exhilaration
Our family get-together in the US couldn’t have come at a more perplexing time. On the one hand we were nearly smothered with warnings and admonitions about the dangers of going out and on the other hand the alluring words of persuasion urging us to board the flight. The nightmarish days of anxiety about Covid tests, results, immigration rules and arduous hours on the plane with double masks on were quite a walk on thorny path.
On reaching home, the warm hugs, squeals of animated laughter from the grandchildren felt as refreshing as would water on desert-parched lips. Then dawned the realisation that though we were braving pandemic fears and the lockdown rules stoically, somewhere in the subconscious we were gasping for normalcy.
We are a group of keen bridge players. During the pandemic, we discovered the wonders of technology as we switched over to online playing. We would log in at the same time and form a table of friends we wanted to play with. On reaching America while the body was still on India clock, I sent a message to three friends, one in London (also on a sojourn like us), another in Delhi and one in Jalandhar. We connected immediately and formed our foursome. What a euphoric experience! I don’t remember much of how we fared at the game but all of us felt a heightened sense of exhilaration. The unexpected connection traversing oceans and time zones left us on a high, unmeasured and unexplained.
The initial couple of days in the beautiful, clean and green surroundings had a fairy tale feel. The largeness of everything takes the breath away. Nature can be experienced in all its magnitude. The ever-evolving shapes of the clouds in multiple layers across the infinite sky, the ineffable hues as the sun descends in all its majesty behind the trees that adorn the circumference of wherever one looks cannot be quantified.
It reminds one of novelist Alice Walker’s quote: “In nature, nothing is perfect, and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.”
In the backyard, on a big bough of a big tree hangs a beautiful bird feeder. It is a mesmerising sight as the birds swoop down to partake of the grains, jet black, a few scarlet, blue, grey and black, black and yellow, tiny green birds, all throng together with the squirrels and the chipmunks. The butterflies during the day and the glow worms at night leave one in silence, savouring every aspect of Creation. The microcosm and the macrocosm! Where do we fit?
I still wake up with the alarm very often in the morning to play with my friends in India. In an age of globalisation characterised by dizzying technologies, at that moment I feel the connection and exchange of energy of both places.
Is the world a big place anymore? Do time and distance keep anyone apart? I think it is time to adjust our perspective. A thing is mighty big only when time and distance cannot shrink it. promildada@yahoo.com
The writer is a freelance contributor
