Spice of Life : From a foggy start to clarity of thought

My earliest memories of foggy mornings are laced with excitement and mystery. The familiar house of our neighbours across the road with its worn-out paint and overgrown weeds, would assume a new avatar, that of a mysterious Enid Blyton manor with its enticing secrets and enchanting tales.

My eyes were greeted with a thick blanket of fog as I looked out of the bedroom window this morning. It’s a sight that’s had different connotations if I were to look back at life.

Our school campus would seem to be a massive fort shrouded in a thick veil of fog, looking so far apart from its monotonous reality. (Hindustan Times)

My earliest memories of foggy mornings are laced with excitement and mystery. The familiar house of our neighbours across the road with its worn-out paint and overgrown weeds, would assume a new avatar, that of a mysterious Enid Blyton manor with its enticing secrets and enchanting tales.

Our school campus would seem to be a massive fort shrouded in a thick veil of fog, looking so far apart from its monotonous reality. Indeed, I would wonder why our geography book never described the true wonder of the fog. The standard textbook description of fog entailing the condensation of water vapour around dust particles just did not do justice to the mystery of the fog that my eyes saw.

As I grew up and joined medical college, the same enchanting fog showed a different facet. One morning, as I drove to college, I was almost run over by a speeding truck because the driver failed to spot my scooter due to poor visibility. I was saved quite literally by the hand of God. I realised that day that every beautiful creation of Mother Nature has a hidden, sinister side.

I completed my training as a psychiatrist and it was then that I realised that the fog had yet another face. It kept me grounded at the Amritsar airport for almost the whole day as the flight to Jaipur could not take off. All travel plans came crashing down due to the dense fog. It didn’t seem beautiful, or mysterious, any longer. Now, I had, rather grudgingly, begun to hate this wonder of nature.

The fog, however, continued to teach me new lessons over the next decade or so. I unravelled another hidden nuance, which had never dawned on me earlier. Standing in the fog is akin to living in the moment with both the past and the future hidden from view. The fog teaches us the joy of savouring the moment irrespective of our unpleasant past and oblivious of our trepidation for the future.

It teaches us to move on in life without dwelling too long on our achievements or failures. Fog is nature’s embodiment of “dissociation” from our expectations and desires. It teaches us the importance of doing one’s “karma (duty)” without worrying about the results.

I’m reminded of one of my English teachers at school who would say that everything and everyone around us is a teacher. All that is required is the intent to be a good student. gulbaharsidhu@rediffmail.com

The writer is a Jalandhar-based psychiatrist