The answer to what is next?

Life moves comfortably until one day the balance is tilted and the self is found in unknown charters standing aimlessly not knowing where to turn.

Take time, the tide will change and clear your path. I could say that to the two ladies who lost their husbands this week, but cannot because these are not the words they neither would want to listen nor would be able to digest as they try to gulp down the pain lingering in their throat threatening to choke them.

It is the fact of knowing that they are never going to see their life partners, would never be able to complete their dreams together, but most importantly the anxiety of leading their children to become independent individuals.

Death is a natural process which can happen anytime yet we are never prepared for it. Covid-19 has been a harsh reality teaching us in many ways.

A young lady with her child walked into a bakery heeding to the child’s request for an ice cream and it is a conversation that revealed that she few months ago lost her husband to Covid-19.

By then she had accepted the reality, she said that she has to be there for her children. I could see her inner strength, as she patiently explained things at the bakery to her young son.

We go to sleep each day thinking the next day is going to be yet another normal day. And as the sun rises we begin our routine... never sparing a thought on how it could be made extra special. We have comfort in routine with no surprises.

In one of our programmes with late Shaikh Khalfan al Esry, life coach and Islamic scholar, he had said, “Live like today is the last day and see how many things you would want to complete.”

Changes have always existed from climate to societies. But there is always a reservoir renewing our energy to recharge ourselves and the earth. If only earth could tell us what it was to go through the continental drift, ice age and the current scenario of pollution and the warming.

To understand what the earth has been going through we do not have to go very far. All we have to do is go to the central part of Oman, to be precise Jiddat al Harasis. It was in the late 90s when I had the opportunity to go there and see the scar of the glacier. The vastness of the land can take you to another level of perception. It was a geological park and a protected area for the Arabian Oryx then.

Jiddat al Harasis is a plateau covering an area of 27,000 sqm at 100-150m. The place continues to be a fascination for the common man but a place to study for geologists. The rainfall, as mentioned in the IUCN summary published in Unesco.org, is monsoonal from June to October but at very low levels around 10mm.

What I learnt from the place is how animals adapt, but it is also how earth provides an opportunity to survive. Had wondered how the animals and birds quench their thirst in the rock desert. Then had the pleasure to watch the most amazing sight ever — it was very early in the morning when something urged me to step out. There is fog everywhere and at first it was the silhouettes of the acacia trees one could see but they were sparkling in the morning sun rays. On a closer look they were the dew drops and the Arabian Oryx and Gazelles were quickly quenching their thirst. The birds chirped away in joy. The earth has answers. The rest of the day it is a dry land but early each day the localised fog turns everything misty and gives the birds and the animals a beautiful day ahead.

Whatever the situation life must go on and the pain will take time to heal and the loss can never be replaced. Acceptance of the situation might be the only way to move ahead

and look at ways to cope and find solutions to a crisis.

Lakshmi Kothaneth

lakshmiobserver@gmail.com