Over sixty years ago Nehru called Bali "the morning of the world". Eden. Man and nature before the fall. Today this can come across as either patronizing or naive, yet... Yet despite the pong of rotting garbage, diesel fumes and something always burning somewhere, despite the plague of motorcycles and the pox of tourists (like us), despite the tentacles of the modern world everywhere, despite all that it does feel like the morning of the world to me. Not the vaguely Bali themed generically tropical vibe of the tourist choked beaches, but here inland in the villages, rice terraces, jungle and temples. Here the Balinese culture is so manifestly resilient, preserving something the rest of us have lost. Here the land is so fertile and so benign, so devoid of potential harm, that as trite as the expression may seem, the word paradise is unavoidable. The garden of Eden.
I am a dawn walker. Always have been. This morning I walked along a ridge leading to Ubud. At a point where views opened up of the sun rising over Gunung Agung I saw a group of four local girls sitting with their hands raised. Praying. The old Bali. As I approached I could see that I was wrong. They were not praying, they were holding up cellphones. The new Bali. I smiled at them and they smiled back in a way that nobody at home would under the same circumstances. The old Bali. The morning of the world.
When I returned to the house the kids were fighting over the tablet. Thirty-five minutes past the morning of the world.
On the theme of innocence, the photos today are courtesy of Isabel. I showed her how the f-stop worked to control depth of field. She took a series of closeups around the house. Shards of the kaleidoscope we live in.
No comments:
Post a Comment