The escalators worked continuously. So many pairs of feet standing, moving and impatiently tapping; Technology is God! Here, there are a million people tramping up and down the metallic moving staircase and no one is tired- imagine going up four floors and down again in minutes and none the worse for it!
Thousands of miles away people all over the world glued to their respective receptors- the space shuttle blasts off- ten, nine, eight.....; technology is almighty.
Millions of packages wrapped faultlessly and effortlessly in minutes; Science is supreme.
Small incisions into the tiny body removing extras, repairing – micro surgery; Science is the life giver!
What am I doing here? Writing an essay on the glory of science?
Not exactly, only trying not to take things for granted. Remember the Japan Quake/ Tsunami not too far back in the past, the volcano in Iceland spewing so much smoke that the whole of Europe was affected and who can forget the fury of the monsoon in India... the various cyclones and tornadoes (Though I feel its mean to name them after girls- so sexist!)
The Human race is great (The twenty first century is the century of the egoist) everywhere you turn you see the brilliance of mankind and if you don’t see it then it’s drummed through your head via the media!
The sky darkened into a lovely steel gray colour; the wind picked up speed ; the date palms swayed dangerously; people picked up their collars and bent their head battling the wind, all feet toward home; the waves crashed on the concrete path (man -made) and the rain started pelting down in sheets and nothing was visible. The wind moaned, almost a sound of the dirge permeated the sub conscious and the electricity went off! –running here and there storing water (in case the supply is not restored and there is no water!) checking for match box and candles and waiting..... Thank God for gas at least there was fire to make tea! Or should I say Thank Man! Then the hail began and the desire to go out in the rain was great but the old and the wise never give in to childish impulses!
Slowly after nature had vented her fury and the electricity supply was resumed and the gifts of man came back in full force. The Television camera swept over the Corniche to show the devastated concrete pathways – tons of concrete swept away and broken and overturned with effortless ease! It must have taken months to build that – building the blocks; transporting them here and then setting them to build the path and in seconds nothing... like a Hindi poem says “Pani ke bulbule” (bubbles of water).
Man has tamed and used the furies of nature but once in a while she rebels and like a cornered animal springs back and attacks! What an attack it is – the tamer is scratched and bloodied, wounded and scarred and sometimes annihilated and only time can heal the blemishes.
Only when you stand alone on a rocky crag looking and listening to the sea or alone on top of a mountain and feel the force of the wind do you realize what a puny thing Man is and yet... Yet this has not stopped us from trying to conquer Nature and the fear of the unknown. Who knows maybe in the future (We are only about 5000 years old- still quite young!) we can tame this shrew and use her potentials to our betterment?
Science has helped us a lot but like all medicines it has its side effects. The day we find a medicine which is effective yet affect-less will we win this battle with nature, will we be able to coexist in peace and find the perfect equation of cause and effect.
While this epic battle goes on for eons, it doesn’t help that we have small snakes in our Eden who use this fledgling power of science to destroy the beginnings of a great civilizations and ape Nature’s fury to bring down years of toil and hard work for their personal gains. Man has come this far because of working together. No project can be successful without the help of others- be it marriage or building a house or a factory! But the Snake is selfish it lives for itself and thus the years of strategy and planning go down like a house of cards with a small breeze of terrorism and a group of people are happy- not knowing that they are cutting off their nose to spite their own face!
We have been taught from childhood that every aspect of life has a good and bad side; history has made this very clear to us. The greatest invention will be when something is created which is completely positive and the yin and the yang merge and the beam of the balance of life is always in a straight line and then, only then will my house of cards stand up to the storms of the Universe.
