House of analogies
Last night in my sleep, I had an epiphany. The last weekend
we had been on a long drive in Switzerland,
where we happen to reside now, and as my utmost passion for sometime, I managed
to take some nice photographs on the way and back. I was pondering specially on
one of the pictures I took that day, the picture which my friends said that was
so beautiful that it almost looked like a painting. The picture was taken from
quite a height, of a beautiful emerald colored lake far below and the village
surrounding it and the mountains on all sides. Well, I might have given you an
idea about how beautiful nature can be. It was simply breathtaking. Anyhow, so
I was thinking about that picture when suddenly it all became clear! What came
to my mind was that Switzerland
is like a rich person’s living room! How come? Everything is so very well
organized, very efficient, so clean that sometimes I feel that even the trees
are in harmony with the officials to keep the city and roads clean and let its
leaves not fall and make it dirty! It’s a perfect place to show, show the beauty,
aesthetics, efficiency, technology everything high and pristine that comes to
your mind is here. So if this whole world was a house, Switzerland would be the rich
person’s living room.
Then I laughed at my epiphany and the analogy and thought ok
lets continue with the other parts of this house. What place would be the
kitchen? A place where there are ingredients from all different cuisines, oil
from Italy, cheese from France, spices from India and many of such things which
a cooking enthusiast will have. Where they would experiment and try to cook
something authentic every time but mostly, lets accept it, it fails! And so England came to
my mind, whose national food could be chicken tikka masala, but most of it
served will be anyway bland. They have know-how and technology of the top
quality ever there is, but when you come to think what they make, there will be
a pause. Oh Cadbury’s isn’t theirs anymore!
Then I laughed a little more. What would be the garden, the
front yard? I think Italy,
a place which is beautiful, food ohh, men ohhh yes, but do we want to live in a
garden? No, we visit the garden, we refresh our senses, we cleanse our soul and
get back inside the house. What about the kitchen garden? Australia maybe. Kitchen garden is
like a therapy to the soul, its an escape. This can change though, I didn’t
think on this one too long.
Then I thought what would be the garage? A place where there
are important tools kept, those tools are expensive and they have the ability
to make beautiful and very useful things. Things that can be put in the living
room or also could be used in the garden or anywhere, but specifically we
wouldn’t put any of these tools for show, we wouldn’t just go into the garage
and admire what amazing thing we own! Instantly I thought it couldn’t be any
other place than India.
A country which has the tools for greatness, but in itself its not even close.
And then there are a couple of fancy “cars” to show off in the garage!
This whole epiphany thing was making me burst with laughter
and I just couldn’t stop it there. What about Spain? Then Spain looked
like a big and beautiful swimming pool in the months of December. What use is
it when the fall weather made it dirty with leaves and it became so cold that
we can only dream of the good times we once had. So there it is, big and
beautiful with all the potential of providing very good time, but if only
someone could clean the mess.
What is Japan
then in this house I’ve been thinking of? It’s the big fancy state of the art
DSLR camera with which I am taking pictures. The technology, the quality, price,
everything just speaks of human
innovation, just that it’s become too heavy now, and there are so many lighter
and less expensive options I could see. And moreover, it’s become old.
What about the bathroom? It’s a difficult one. A place which
takes all the dirt and is so essential that its proper functioning is what
keeps the house running. And only one place that comes in my mind is Germany. In the
past it was only a place reminding of dirt, but now we all know its importance
in lifting up societies and countries from their dirt.
What about France?
Oh, it’s the neighbor’s house. It’s big and beautiful too but we are not
talking about it now. And I think it’s jealous, but who cares.
Then I thought what would be USA? I must tell you, that like
thinking about Switzerland, the idea of living room just popped into my head,
unlike that for some countries I thought what would be their best analogy. And
so USA
would be the sophisticated, expensive and very complicated alarm system. The
alarm system’s main function is to provide false hope, in reality it doesn’t
actually stop any burglary to happen. Most of the times, the system just goes
off on itself and makes a terrible noise informing everyone about the
dysfunctional but existing system.
I was very content and ecstatic about my analogical epiphany
but I did miss something. It’s a big house, who lives there, who controls all
the other systems, right when I was thinking about it, I hear the door unlock,
and China
walks in. And I fall asleep.
