By HH Mohrmen
In a way this piece is different from the other write-ups because the situation we are in, not only gives us ample time to do many things but it also gives us an opportunity to relook at life and try to understand life in its broader and deeper sense. The pandemic which has spread so fast also has affected a large population across the world and for the first time ever everybody in the world is facing the same problem. This has huge ramifications on the social and economic life of the individual country in particular and the world at large. The world has not encountered a more difficult predicament than this in recent times. It is therefore natural for people to look beyond the obvious and try to understand the chaos.
In trying to understand the situation, it is also human nature to question and give meaning to what we see around us. This write up is therefore trying to understand life amidst the unprecedented turmoil; it is trying to see light beyond this tunnel of darkness. Initially people were unable to comprehend what was happening; everything happened so fast. All of a sudden everything was brought to a grinding halt. But the shocker came later when it began to appear that it has affected a large section of the population and the people are dying in droves in different parts of the world. People started to ask questions such as, “What is this that we are facing? How can this happen? Why is this happening?
Some people take refuge in religion and interpret this as the sign of the end times. Some say this is God’s way of punishing people for their sins and still some are of the opinion that this is the devil in action. This is an extraordinary time and people very naturally will look for answers and interpret according those according to their own understanding. For me the very first lesson that I learned from the pandemic is that our priorities have changed. Or to be more precise all of a sudden there are no priorities other than to save one’s life.
People in the entire world are voicing the same message and everybody is saying ‘stay home, to save your own life and that of others.’ In order to save one’s life one also has to ensure the safety of the other’s life. Saving one’s own life and saving others’ lives is becoming a universal mantra that echoes around the globe. In the blink of an eye all of a sudden, the goal that we are chasing in life is no longer relevant; it is not our priority anymore. The main concern now is to save our dear lives and everything else can wait.
The profound tribal understanding of life comes flooding back at us. All of a sudden we realise the importance of common good or ‘ka bhalang uba bun balang’. The timeless wisdom which teaches us that ‘ka bhalang ka imlang sahlang’ (the wellbeing of all is paramount), which was then like an ember hidden in the ashes of greed and self-interest started to glow again. Everyone realised that there is no point of being at the pink of one’s health if one’s neighbour or acquaintance is COVID-19 positive. It dawns on us that if we are to survive, we need to work together even if for most of us, that means staying home and abandoning all that we earlier considered important.
Everything else can wait and saving one’s life and saving others life has become priority number one. Weddings can wait, meetings and conference can wait and there can always be a Chadsukra, a Hajj, a Puja, a Passover or a Pesach and even Easter next year, but there is no substitute to life. The COVID-19 has changed our perspective about life because we are confronting and facing death right in front of our eyes. Death has never been so blunt and so apparent than in the way it gives its message this time. If death can occur to others, it can happen to us too; and that between life and death the difference is just like a flip of a coin.
The message is loud and clear. We are all in this together. All of a sudden our borders ceased to have meaning. We are susceptible to the disease no matter who we are and where we live. We are at risk as any other human and now we know even animals have the same vulnerability. There has never been a much greater leveller than this; it treats all those who live in this world in the same way without any prejudice.
During the lockdown Mr Phrang Roy sent me a short video which was also accompanied by a text which described an event which happened 30 years ago. He mentioned about the event in 1990 when Voyager 1 Probe had completed its primary mission and was ready to leave the solar system. Carl Sagan was asked if there is anything he wanted the space mission to do before it shuts its camera to save energy. On Sagan’s request the mission commanded its camera to turn around and on February 14, 1990 took one last photo of the Earth from a distance of over 6 billion kilometres or 3.7 billion miles. In the image taken from the interstellar space, the size of the Earth appeared to be just like a pixel in the great expanse of darkness. On this rare photograph the Earth appears like a pin prick hanging in the beam of light from the Sun. It was this image of the Earth taken from a great distance by Voyager 1 which makes Carl Sagan coin the term ‘Pale blue dot’ to describe the Earth. From the great distance the Earth appears a pale blue dot.
It was this image and the accompanying video which helped give me more insight into life. The opening scene of the video was a close up shot of the Earth which then gradually zoomed out further and further from the camera. And as the camera zoomed out the Earth became smaller and smaller the voice over and the subtitle in the video started with, ‘That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you know everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, live out their lives.’ The camera zoomed out till the Earth was almost invisible and everything that we are proud of is in this pale blue dot.
How small our Earth really is considering the magnitude of the cosmos and yet we live with the delusion that only our lives are important, only our religion, our ideologies and our race or tribe is more superior and hence more important than others. We fight for the artificial borders that we created because we understand only as much as we can see. We divide ourselves on the basis of our differences; we create barriers and deliberately generate misunderstandings in order to breed hatred amongst us. We start to draw a line between us and them and try to kill one another. We focus our attention on these trivial things and do not realise that the Earth is just the size of a dot in the immeasurable darkness and we are all in this minute pixel.
Phrang Roy was right that the words which accompany the video though written 26 years ago are still relevant today. The last lines in particular resonate well with the situation that we are facing now. The words which were attributed to Sagan are, ‘to me it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.’
This spring is unlike the spring before this one, and there will be no other spring like this one in the near future. And while this season which brings life slips from us, two things come to mind. We are all in this world for dear life or life is more important than anything else. And we are all in this pale blue dot together, we live together, we die together. The pandemic has reinforced the reality that if we are to live, we have to help others live too and there is no substitute to life, as there is no alternative to Earth.