Leftovers and rambles

Regular features of the last few days have been the setting sun - with its orange rays splashing around like waves - visible right until the horizon takes a bite at it, strong headwinds on my way to work, the crazy, somewhat dangerous rides on the way back, late nights, late mornings and Modern Family (with its funniest lines delivered with the straightest faces).

In the elevator today was a stockily built man, fortyish, with an ID indicating he was a colleague. I entered and went all the way back while he stayed near the button panel. After climbing one floor, the elevator stopped as another person tried to enter. He was a little late and we could see him coming. The door however closed on him when he was able to get only half a foot in. The stocky guy stood nonchalantly, not even bothering to push the button to open the door until I hollered. The person trying to enter was an office boy, responsible for cleaning and maintenance. I was very surprised by this man's behaviour. On the road, one sees enough uncivil behaviour, but then, everyone is behind a mask. The people are reduced to vague labels like the truck-driver, the cyclist, the auto-rickshaw (not even driver), the pedestrian (who looks the other way while crossing the road)... Under the guise of anonymity, people flout rules like children. But this wasn't the case given our proximity in the elevator today. Would he have done it, if that young boy was our colleague, an "equal" ? What disappoints me is how we separate, how we draw our lines, how through our ignorance we breed all that we can't complain enough about, everything we think is wrong in our world.

Speaking of diversity and togetherness, I am reminded of snottites. Little slimy creatures generating snot, or rather, very concentrated sulphuric acid. They cling onto walls of deep caves where the air is so rich in hydrogen-sulphide, it could kill a human being. They breathe it in and generate the acid as a byproduct. Then there are Archaea, micro-organisms present in stomachs of termites(and elsewhere) that help them digest wood, producing methane as a by-product. Or even the little bacteria surviving under the upper layers of ice in regions of the earth which remain perpetually frozen. What is life-taking for one species is life-giving for the other. Closer to us, fish die on exposure to air while man would, under water. Yet what unites us remains deeper. It's these similarities that scientists use to try and interpret data from other planets and moons, to find potential for life. I was watching BBC Earth, quite enthralled, and it reminded me how I wanted to be an astronomer when I was very young. How many young boys didn't, I wonder.

What diversity does is deepen our search for unity. And it is to be found quite overwhelmingly. I remember when I was in my early teens, trying hard to step into an adult's shoes, it was amusing to come up with abstract theories and ideas to explain our existence. The ideas naturally were grand, intuitive and on the surface of it, perhaps beautiful. But how far were they tested? Our environments were controlled, we met similar people, inhabited a small part of the world, had repeated exposure to similar events...Books did good things, but how much? What could be done to make the cracks in these ideas show? Very little really and gradually with time they started getting firmer. And coupled with an instinctive need for certainty, I began denying the facts that laughed at these theories. It brought unhappiness, but with a lack of objectivity, it wasn't possible to trace the source. But one can be blind only for a while. Once we decide to move forward, there is no turning back. What surprises me is how an overwhelming number of us still choose to remain under the weight of narrowness, turning bitter, defensive and lonely, finding it easy to blame circumstance and others for the joy that becomes elusive. Like Doña Fernanda del Carpio de Buendía! Or perhaps the man I met in the elevator today.