Swaledale

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Now and again, maybe just a few times a year, I get what I call a transcendental moment. These are moments of extraordinary serenity and peace, when all the concerns and pre-occupations of everyday life just fall away, and I feel totally at equilibrium with the cosmos. To misquote some character out of Voltaire, everything seems to be for the best in the best of all possible universes. Unfortunately I do not have the ability to bring on this desirable state of mind at will. It just happens to me out of the blue. Since I am not religious, do not take drugs, do not believe in paranormal phenomena, and do not do meditation, I expect that these transcendental moments will continue to be unexpected events in my life. Of course I do have some idea about certain combinations of time, place, and mood that are likely to bring on such a moment. They are usually encountered in restful moments towards the end of the day or in the welcome pauses between the main events. Those much-anticipated main events of life that in practice are often overloaded with unrealistic expectations and stress, and that often fade quickly from the memory while those restful pauses in between stay as treasured memories. Anyway, by now you probably don't have the faintest idea what I'm going on about, so I will switch to a concrete example.

We were in Chittorgarh, visiting the hilltop fort. This was a collection of buildings scattered around a vast area on the hilltop plateau. We came to a beautiful Jain temple that was situated on the edge of the plateau. The temple was surrounded by a garden - it was an unusually quiet spot. I stood alone at the edge of the garden and looked down a sheer drop of 200 meters to the surrounding countryside, which was a patchwork quilt of agricultural fields. The warm oblique sunlight of late afternoon emphasised the pattern of the fields and highlighted the colours. Suddenly I became aware that I was having a transcendental moment. But this time there was something different - an extra dimension - a resonance with another transcendental moment of long ago. A flashback. I was 22 years old and walking the Pennine Way in England. At the end of an exhausting day, it was late afternoon, I looked out over the valley of Swaledale. The oblique rays of the setting sun illuminated the patchwork quilt of fields. I thought it was the most beautiful landscape that I had ever seen. (OK, so I was young and had not travelled much. I had not yet seen the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rockies, Yosemite. Its all relative.) "Swaledale...Swaledale" I had repeated the word over and over to myself like a mantra, and I solemnly swore then that I would one day return to Swaledale and experience its many delights at my leisure. But, of course, I have never been back. Until now, in the garden of the Jain temple in Chittorgarh, I returned to Swaledale. The resonance between these two landscapes, these two moments, suddenly caused an unexpected phenomenom. Like the drowning man who is reputed to see his whole life flash before him, I suddenly saw the intervening 37 years pass before me, all the joys and pain, an exquisitely yearning tsunami of emotion. For no reason, or every reason, my eyes filled with tears.

"Where you from?" A voice broke into my trance.
"Which country you from sir?" I became aware of an Indian teenager standing beside me. I quickly wiped my eyes and spoke without looking at him.
"England" I usually reply England rather than Holland, unless I suspect the questioner to be an extremist sympathiser.
"Ing-ge-lend?" he repeated with some difficulty. Stupid boy, I thought.
"Yes, England. You know, Freddy Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen. Cricket - we invented the bloody game!"
I turned to walk away, and stumbled as I stepped onto a newly-planted sapling.
"Jesus Christ! Nearly broke me bloody ankle!"
I looked at the boy for the first time and laughed lightly in an attempt to regain my superior Western poise. He laughed politely and good-naturedly. Tracey, who had just appeared, laughed as well.
"Why do you have to be so sarcastic with people?" she said as we walked away.
"I'm fed up with being asked that question 100 times a day."
"He was just expressing an interest."
"Expressing an interest in my wallet, more like. Like the rest of them."
"God, you can be a right miserable bastard sometimes you know."
"What do you mean, sometimes?"
I realised that my instantaneous disenchantment with approximately 1 billion Indians was only on account of the lad interrupting my transcendental moment, but I did not tell Tracey that. Neither did I tell her about Swaledale. Until now.

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