Prosaic

A middle-aged Chinese peasant has been riding his sluggish bullock-cart since dawn. He hopes to make it to the neighbouring Bai Jia Po village, less than 20 miles away, before dusk. Unmindful of the scorching sun, right overhead now, he is delectably busy humming the local folk song. The bulls, on their part, respond to the tune with a saltating tail & matching gait.

Graduation Ceremony today marks a pleasant culmination of the hard work put in by the Canadian student at Texas A&M University, USA. As soon as the Convocation gets over in the morning, he plans to leave for Montreal with his girlfriend in their high-speed Italian car. Taking turns at driving, they plan to comfortably make it home, traveling over 2000 miles, by late next day.

A French traveller is standing, marvelling, at the breath-taking view of The Millau Bridge, the Highest Bridge in the World. The deck of the bridge is mostly invisible to the eye (unless looked closer); being concealed by the thick clouds most of the time. The newly constructed bridge means a significant reduction in travel time between Paris and the Mediterranean for the travellers. Though for him, like most other people, the unique on the clouds road travel is an experience to cherish lifelong.

I am with my parents (who are settled in a cosmopolitan city in Eastern India) over a weekend. My mother's face lights up with a pleasant smile as our conversation drifts to a talk on telephones, and their introduction into the Indian markets roughly a decade or so ago. She excitedly recalls how during her first few experiences with the new device, the wiggling voice would tickle in her ears. It was a time when some would even hesitate to get near the ghostly (speaking) device!

Taking cue, I mention the special Thursday afternoons in High School, when our Teacher would take us to the Computer Lab for Practicals. Like visiting a temple, we would be asked to remove our shoes before entering the lab (to keep the dust away). For me then, the mere sight of a computer was like a divine blessing! Though I'm with the software industry now, I still remember the unique feeling of excitement when for the first time I successfully copied a file in MS DOS.

While we are talking, my little sister is busy downloading MP3 music from the internet on her personal computer at home.

Life of people can be so different from one place to another on the same planet. Also, life changes so much even within the same generation of a family.

Now, lets take a look at this difference in life from a different perspective.

Talking holistically, one could consider human life to be a collection of contrasting experiences coming up at alternating periodicity. Put in simple words, it means humans experience feelings of happiness & distress, love & hatred, hope & despair, gratitude & selfishness, ... alternately throughout their life. Though the events (or the lack of them) yielding these feelings may vary per person; in essence, the feelings are felt the same way.

Consider a boy staring at the elfin beauty sitting at the farther end of the table in a restaurant. He feels shy and looks away the moment her limpid eyes meet his. A few days later, when they meet again at a friend's place, he finally musters enough courage to go and talk to her. Though hesitant initially, the girl also begins to like him. Imagine their feeling on the first kiss..

The fictionality of the above scene is trivialized by the fact that in reality this titillating feeling is independent of geography. I mean, here, an American heart would lovingly palpitate the same way as a Chinese one would.

Take a group of common people, from teenagers to senior citizens, gathered near a ground station to witness the launch of a satellite into orbit in-person. The receding countdown, with every single passing second, has a contagious effect of amplifying the heartbeat of every soul present. As the rockets blast and take-off, the thundering ground-impact followed by a deafening sound makes the crowd tremble over miles. The designated trajectory traversed by the rocket is traced equally by the viewer's eyes (including those feeble ones) as well, until it fades away.

Is the human exhilaration at Sriharikota, India different from that at Kourou, French Guiana? On a scale of 1 to 10, whose ebullience would you rate higher?

I am watching a program on BBC World channel on TV showing a lady trying to teach her teenage daughter how to drive a car. The young girl, though keen to learn, is impatient at the same time. In her excitement to learn quickly, she would frequently miss her mother's counselling on speed, stop signs, and changing lanes. Finally, after some determined practise for a while, she finally gets it right. Her eyes full of elation remind me of the moment when my little sister first learnt to balance her bicycle and reached my arms, while I was standing a little distance away to the front.

It is not difficult to recognize that intermittently periodic events that generate feelings of distress, hatred, despair, et. al. are also independant of geography and time. Losing of a beloved family member, non-fulfilment of dreams/ambitions, ... are spatially generic events since the long past.

Over space and time, the crafts of life have changed. Their meaning, however, has remained the same.

Welcome to the prosaic human life on earth.

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