Ms Louise and Map of The Shetland Islands

“Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. This is your captain.  In a short while, we will be docking at Lerwick. We hope you enjoyed the night sailing with us.  We wish you a good time in The Shetland Islands,” streamed in the skipper's announcement.

Our vacation to Scotland and beyond was a gift from Doctor Abe and Elizabeth, our exceptionally big-hearted relatives, retired doctors, and hosts. We were accompanying them on the trip to The Shetland Islands.  Abe rented a car for the journey. We drove out from Birmingham and headed to Penrith for the night. Enroute we stopped by Lake Windermere and Dove Cottage, in Grasmere. It was one of the most picturesque journeys my wife and I had ever undertaken. Surrounded by so much natural beauty, Wordsworth could not have been anything but a nature poet. At Penrith, we were invited, by my wife’s cousin, Anna and her husband, a doctor, to dinner in a countryside pub. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and everyone acknowledged each other's presence. We left for Edinburg the next day. Edinburg did not heed the weatherman’s warning of strong winds and rain. We spent a bright day walking there. When we reached Aberdeen the next day to catch the ferry to the Shetland Islands, rain and wind caught up with us but could not impede our plans. Cocooned in the comforts of the ferry, we did not feel the biting cold, strong winds from the North Sea. After a night-long sail, smooth barring the occasional rough sea, we docked right on time at the Pier in Lerwick. 

When we drove our SUV out of the ferry after breakfast, it was only 7:30 AM. We knew we were early for everything else but sightseeing. So we decided to drive around. “The outside temperature is six degrees,” said Abe. “It is comfortable inside,” I said. When we stepped out into the parking area near the Lerwick Town Hall, we realised what six degrees with the cold winds from the Atlantic felt like. It wasn't much different from the cold howling winds I had befriended amidst the mighty mountains of Ladakh. “Let us get to the tourist information centre,” said Abe when we were done seeing the beautiful stained glass windows in the town hall. “Let us go,” I replied. I did not realise, I was about to meet someone I will never forget. 

There were other tourists already when we reached the Information Centre. We waited. “Hi, Can I help you?” the beautiful young lady with one of the most disarming smiles I have ever seen, asked Abe.  I craned my neck to read her name tag. “Louise,” I read. 

“Hi. We are here for three days. Can you please tell us what we should see around?” Abe asked. 

“You, driving, walking, or looking for public transport?’ she asked. 

“Driving.”

“That sounds good. Where are you put up?”

“In Brae.”

“That makes it easy. You are in the middle of the Island. Lemme give you a map,” she said and tore out a sheet from the bunch of printed maps on the counter. 

“That's it. She will give the map and say, you can find your way now,” I thought. You can’t blame me for my insane thought. The traveller I am, I have been to tourist information centres closer home. More often than not, I regretted wasting my time going to such centres and coming across disinterested, insincere, and ignorant people who were more eager to connect me with some operator lurking in the shadows than answering my queries. I recalled how, at one place, the man was busy playing on his mobile and even refused to acknowledge our presence. I made him realise that we were alive and around him. “Read the display boards. I don't have anything more than what is written there,”  he muttered, pointing to the shoddy stuff on the wall. It might have been display boards when the centre was inaugurated. He promptly went back to his absorbing video game. 

Lerwick was different. She picked up a pen and started marking the map with a running commentary of what we could expect to see or must-see. It took her ten minutes to explain to us. She was calm and deliberate. Each syllable of what she said was clear. I watched her expressions as she spoke to Abe. I saw commitment in her glowing eyes. She was making sure we saw everything possible in three days. Then I noticed that she was writing things on the map, but upside down. I craned my neck to see what she was writing. “Oh sorry. I know it's upside down for you but it's faster this way. Hope you won't mind,” she said. “Not as long as we don't have to walk upside down,” I replied. She smiled. I don't know if she got my joke. 

“Where can we see the Orcas,” asked my wife.

“Oh, they keep moving. They are wild animals. There is a social media page, Orcas of Shetland, run by some enthusiasts. They keep track of the sightings. Sign into it, and maybe you will get the latest information. Hope you get to see them,” she said. It looked like she wanted us to see the orcas. “Reach Sumburgh Nature Reserve early morning or late evening, you can see puffin chicks when papa-mama comes calling with food.” 

“Thank you very much,” Abe said.

“In case you need help in between, call on this number,” she said and wrote it down on the map. “Have a great time,” she said as we left. 

“Hi,” I heard her eager voice again. She must be attending to the next tourist, I knew.

“I am impressed. This is called commitment,” I said as we walked out of the information centre.  I had not seen anyone so patient and descriptive in any information centres I have been to. It was not that we were the only ones asking for information there was a queue waiting to be attended to. 

During the next three days, we travelled all over the Shetland Islands, as she had instructed. We drove onto the ferry at Toft and drove out at Ulsta. We drove onto another ferry at Gutcher to drive out in Bellmont. We went to the castle in Muness, the Boat Haven in Harroldswick and the Hermanness National Nature Reserve. Since the sunset was only at 10:20 at night, we had time to retrace our ferry trips and drive to Sumburgh head, the southern tip of the Island to see the nesting Puffins. 

“Hold on,” I said, as we were driving to catch the ferry to the mainland. “We must thank that lady for facilitating our trip.”

“Yes. So much information in one sheet and so well briefed. Three days and not a minute wasted,” replied Abe taking the next exit to turn the car towards the information centre. “Thank you very much, Louise. You made our visit beautiful,” I said when we reached the centre.

“Awaa, you are so kind,” she replied and smiled. Her face lit up. “Did you see the Orcas?” 

“No,” I said. “We didn't cross paths. Maybe sometime later. 

“The Puffins?” 

“To our heart's content.” I was impressed. She remembered what we had asked despite the number of people she met to answer day in and day out. When I walked out of the centre, I was awash in gratitude and admiration for Louise.

“One doesn't have to be a doctor to be clinical. One doesn't have to be a missionary to have a missionary zeal. One doesn't have to be the owner to have a deep sense of ownership. One doesn't have to hold a high office to be responsible. Any job can be glorious and rewarding. One just needs to be like Louise,” I thought walking back to the car. People like her make organisations come alive. People like Louise make the world a beautiful place.

“You are silent,” said Abe.

“I was thinking if I have thanked Louise enough,” I replied. “I hope we find more people like Louise.” 

PS: You can see most of what we saw on the trip on my social media pages.

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Woods are Lovely Dark and Deep: The Secret of The Woods

Life is intriguing, yet most go through it without casting a second glance. Many amongst us spend a lifetime content enough eking out an existence, dying many a daily death.  Rich or poor, few dare to look beyond livelihoods and wealth accumulation. When one dares to ask questions to oneself about oneself, the quest begins.  Quest  gives meaning to life and questions that arise, on their own slowly reach their answers.

A persistent question, the ‘why’ of people’s behaviour came up in a late evening discussion with two friends, a young couple both achievers, located in San Francisco. The cause and effect notion of life, means with which it gains currency and its short lived utility found home in that discussion.  Weeks later by sheer coincidence, another persistent one ‘purpose of life’ came up for discussion with, a spiritually evolved, material minimalists and unbelievably large hearted couple, our hosts in Tustin, California. It was in one of many such discussions about programming and reprogramming ourselves the ‘secret of the woods’ became clear to me. Let me share that with you.

Most of us are led by narratives fed to us right from our childhood. Slowly, over time as we grow, we absorb these as day-to-day requisites and internalise them as a program that we all become well accustomed to. In effect,  we voluntarily live a life dictated and programmed by others. These countless lines of internal coding that covers almost all areas of our life dictate how we think, perceive and even decide between right and wrong. In fact, it governs everything we do. We seldom dare to deviate.  

The ‘secret of the woods’, I learnt was like that. But something else was revealed that day.  It was not revealed to me during any  meditation session.  It was not passed on to me by any teacher. I just stumbled up on my own version of the secret  in one of these discussions.

A favourite of statesmen like Pt. JL Nehru and Nelson Mandela and very often used for recitation competition, the poem ‘Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening'  by Robert Frost, is a captivating read. The last of the four stanzas, is widely quoted by teachers and elders alike to drill in the need to set goals for life and focus on them as destinations, as we travel forward in life.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

The wise use these four lines to egg us on to ignore the beautiful deep woods in front of us and get on with life’s goals. In this widely accepted taught and propagated explanation, a sense of immorality and guilt, in the act of watching snow fill up the woods that doesn’t belong to you seems to be inherent. Even the horse seems to sense something "queer" with the poet stopping near the woods on the darkest evening to see the beauty of nature. Such explanations make, mutually exclusive binary choices, the norm, compelling readers to denounce one in favour of the other. That is how we have been programmed.

Is that the only explanation? May be there could be others too.

Poets like other artists tend to be driven by the heart more and less by arithmetic equations. Best of poems come out from intense emotions of love,  won or lost, beauty or  passions.

Look at those lines bit more closely. 

Isn’t the poet portraying immense inner conflict between the urge to stay on watching the beautiful woods and the diktats of society asking him to set and pursue goals? Does the Poet say that he ditched the lovely woods for the ‘promises’ that lie miles away? He leaves us at the cross roads to decide! 

Somehow we are programmed to choose the 'miles ahead' dumping the spectacular show nature has put on for us. We also forget that the beauty being unravelled is fleeting.

While falling snow and the beautiful woods , according to many, are mere temptations that distract us from real goals that lay far ahead, isn't the poet telling us that it is such beauties, though fleeting, in life that make the journey beautiful and despite compulsions, one must stop by.

Sadly, most of us are wired such that we easily  immerse ourselves in pursuit of destinations of the journey, given in to compulsions of an uncertain future casting away the beauty of living in the present. Our actions are often investments for  future little realizing that the road ahead ends only at the pyre or in a casket. The most powerful, resourceful, richest and wisest have all had to shed their power, fortunes and intelligence behind as they were carried out on the final journey.

Life, is all about experiences rather than material accruals. Somehow we seem to hold the two mutually exclusive though they can comfortably coexist. We need things to live and comforts too. But dying to get that forgetting to live?

We are on an one way street with no chance to retrace our steps. Not one man has found a way. Every possible scriptures says so, yet believers and non believers alike have drowned themselves in futile pursuit dumping the beautiful present.

To me the secret has been unravelled.

Would you like to take a relook?

 

 

 

 

NOW I UNDERSTAND

Dad, me, you just don’t try to understand

Desperate my daughter, as the situation, I try to understand

Against me in my way, why I find you, I don’t understand

World’s ways at least now, you need to understand

Those little frowns and smiles, I could understand

Without words, your needs I could always understand

Fleeting time I feel, I failed to understand

My little girl, a charming lady, I didn’t understand

Your little eyes, once I could always read and understand

Angels and demons, your dreams, then I could understand

Clinging to my chest, your sleep I could easily understand

Your need to be cuddled, by looks I could then understand

You were trying to walk, I could easily understand

Why I had to hold you always, never fully I could understand

You were just teething, from books I could understand

Why night long your mom and I cried, I still don’t understand

It was just a passing fever, from the doc, I could understand

Why your mom and I couldn’t sleep, I still don’t understand

You, with your friends were out just to play, I could understand

Your absence short, why our concern grave, I still don’t understand

You, our dream come true, I do understand

Why you cloud all our thoughts, I don’t understand

Why we interfere so much, I don’t understand

May be, it’s our love that you don’t understand

Your curls and perms, in my own way I do understand

Your slang and tastes, though weird I do understand

Your distance from me, now I don’t understand

Your silence, once crystal clear, now I just don’t understand

Clinging to me you always stood, why, I then could understand

Holding you, my swelling pride I then could understand

Why you hold your friends so dear, now I don’t understand

May be, it’s the generation gap that I fail to understand

Once my parents, me, I felt never did understand

My needs and deeds, they just couldn’t understand

Their reasons and logic, I just couldn’t understand

Ways of the world, I felt, they just couldn’t understand

For once, my girl, now I truly understand

Them and their love, now I truly understand

Thanks to my daughter, now I truly understand

Life’s cycle, my girl, now I truly understand