Japan still figures very strongly in the peripheries of my thought. The arbitrariness of life--- it could have been us in India, more specifically Chennai, as it lies on the shore. In minutes, this city would be just a memory and the people, "six feet under." The utter annihilation of the Sendai tsunami underlines how precarious our existence on this planet is. We are all living literally and metaphorically, on the "Ring of Fire." Personally, I think it is good to be reminded ,of the transitory nature of our life, every now and then. It helps to clear the fog, and get our priorities clear.The fact we will all one day be "...rolled around earth's diurnal course/With rocks and stones and trees.",(Wordsworth) is hugely sobering. What better way to go, than be taken into what brought us forth?
This is a fragile planet, and a very young one. We are probably witnessing the rites of passage towards Earth's maturity. Please remember, the continents once were drifting, and this mass we are on, this huge subcontinent, the Indian plate, is supposed to have pushed up the Himalayas when it did a head on collision with the Eurasian plate. What a stupefying fact by any definition!
It came upon me one summer when we were holidaying in Kausani,a remote little hamlet at the very foothills of the Himalayas, home to the great Hindi litterateur Jayashankar Prasad. Standing on the patio of our rented cottage we had a breathtaking view of Trishool and Nanda Devi, and the glistening Pindar glacier . The air had just cleared after a thunderstorm and it seemed as if I could reach out and touch the towering peaks. To think this was the result of an arbitrary happening! If the collision had not happened we would not have had the majesty of the Himalayas. A very unsettling thought. Even in the brutal heat of North Indian summer Kausani remained cool and balmy. The towering snow covered peaks and the frozen Pindar that fed Ganga, Yamuna ,Sindhu and the Brahmaputra gleamed commandingly from afar, making one very much aware of our infinitely tiny presence in the scheme of things.
Yet we dare to dream big. That is good, because only then we can achieve. But it does not stop there. Being what we are,being so full of pride and arrogance in self, we dare to assume that we can control Nature. The "Hubris" the Greeks so tellingly illustrated in their tragedies, is all about overstepping of boundaries. We have not only overstepped, I am afraid, we have forgotten that there were any boundaries at all. What boundaries? This planet, this solar system, this universe itself is seen as part of the happy hunting grounds of humans. Sans respect, sans reverence.
They were right, Sophocles, Euripedes, in trying to get our attention to the enormity of this irreverence. They illustrated it with the horror of Medea feeding Jason with the flesh of his children, the arrogance of Oedipus leading him unknowingly to take his mother as his wife.... instances that relate going against the natural order because of extreme ego.
We are doing just that to this planet of ours. Our "hubris" encompasses every aspect of life. Nuclear power for one is a standing example. Never mind the terrifying facts of radiation in case of accidents... but then we make provisions for accidents and say "we are prepared" but are we really? In our wonderfully resourceful way we have plan A, plan B, plan C... and so on in case of catastrophes and such irritating happenings that slow us in our "progress". Except when it happens, it is the innocent who suffer , the innocent who die.
Many in Japan ask "Is this the big one?" Who knows? Does anybody know? Can anyone predict?
Let us then accept that we need help, we need faith not just in ourselves, but in something more, maybe in Nature all around us. Respect for the powerful statement that Nature can make, vanquishing in seconds millenia of informed human efforts.
I do not know much about Gods, but I think that the river
Is a strong brown God --- sullen, untamed and intractable
Patient to some degree…...
The problem once solved, the brown God is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in the cities --- ever…...
"Dry Salvages" (Four Quartets) T.S.Eliot
This is a fragile planet, and a very young one. We are probably witnessing the rites of passage towards Earth's maturity. Please remember, the continents once were drifting, and this mass we are on, this huge subcontinent, the Indian plate, is supposed to have pushed up the Himalayas when it did a head on collision with the Eurasian plate. What a stupefying fact by any definition!
It came upon me one summer when we were holidaying in Kausani,a remote little hamlet at the very foothills of the Himalayas, home to the great Hindi litterateur Jayashankar Prasad. Standing on the patio of our rented cottage we had a breathtaking view of Trishool and Nanda Devi, and the glistening Pindar glacier . The air had just cleared after a thunderstorm and it seemed as if I could reach out and touch the towering peaks. To think this was the result of an arbitrary happening! If the collision had not happened we would not have had the majesty of the Himalayas. A very unsettling thought. Even in the brutal heat of North Indian summer Kausani remained cool and balmy. The towering snow covered peaks and the frozen Pindar that fed Ganga, Yamuna ,Sindhu and the Brahmaputra gleamed commandingly from afar, making one very much aware of our infinitely tiny presence in the scheme of things.
Yet we dare to dream big. That is good, because only then we can achieve. But it does not stop there. Being what we are,being so full of pride and arrogance in self, we dare to assume that we can control Nature. The "Hubris" the Greeks so tellingly illustrated in their tragedies, is all about overstepping of boundaries. We have not only overstepped, I am afraid, we have forgotten that there were any boundaries at all. What boundaries? This planet, this solar system, this universe itself is seen as part of the happy hunting grounds of humans. Sans respect, sans reverence.
They were right, Sophocles, Euripedes, in trying to get our attention to the enormity of this irreverence. They illustrated it with the horror of Medea feeding Jason with the flesh of his children, the arrogance of Oedipus leading him unknowingly to take his mother as his wife.... instances that relate going against the natural order because of extreme ego.
We are doing just that to this planet of ours. Our "hubris" encompasses every aspect of life. Nuclear power for one is a standing example. Never mind the terrifying facts of radiation in case of accidents... but then we make provisions for accidents and say "we are prepared" but are we really? In our wonderfully resourceful way we have plan A, plan B, plan C... and so on in case of catastrophes and such irritating happenings that slow us in our "progress". Except when it happens, it is the innocent who suffer , the innocent who die.
Many in Japan ask "Is this the big one?" Who knows? Does anybody know? Can anyone predict?
Let us then accept that we need help, we need faith not just in ourselves, but in something more, maybe in Nature all around us. Respect for the powerful statement that Nature can make, vanquishing in seconds millenia of informed human efforts.
I do not know much about Gods, but I think that the river
Is a strong brown God --- sullen, untamed and intractable
Patient to some degree…...
The problem once solved, the brown God is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in the cities --- ever…...
"Dry Salvages" (Four Quartets) T.S.Eliot
What else to say?
ReplyDeleteAn engrossing write up I must say! and so very true...
ReplyDelete