The Vanishing Point

Shirali Raina
Years of flying and scores and scores of flights , yet the fear of flying has not abated, I have just learnt to cope with it.
The drill is to find your seat, plonk down and close your eyes till you reach the destination,with minimal mental and physical activity. A cynical frequent flyer.
The cynicism however  has no dampening effect on the little particularities. The satisfaction of getting a nice window seat, the sulkiness of being cramped in the middle one , the claiming of aisle as extra foot space, the raised eyebrows at the price of inflight meals and merchandise……you get the general drift.
Today is a little different. I am feeling blue. The recent passing away of a dear friend has shaken me to the core.So a nice window seat and a clear blue sky outside do not register in the mind.The moment I close my eyes, my friend’s face looms up in my thoughts. I cannot sleep today, my usual drill is discarded.
As the engines rev up and I try to settle in, my fellow passenger tries to make small talk, ” Glorious sky today, no?” I glance out of the window. I am mildly surprised to see a clear blue sky in place of the usual haze hanging over the city. Maybe the haze is a blessing in disguise , I think to myself as I peer down to see how ugly the city looks from here.
There is a thrill in gradually soaring above the mundane and watch the earth fall away. The tall buildings, the broad motorways start losing their aura of grandeur and authority, the city landmarks their self importance ,the half completed constructs their ugliness and the sense of permanency starts getting diluted. The honking,the fumes, the noise do not inhabit my world at the moment.
I feel like a ringside spectator who only watches but does not indulge in the  ongoing activity.
There is a strange feeling of detachment and there is food for thought.
Brunelleschi, Raphael and other Renaissance masters are credited with bringing the element of Perspective to the two dimensional art and provide a three dimensional illusion on a flat surface. At its core lies the concept of the ‘Vanishng Point’. In a layman’s language,a point which defines the maximum depth of that painting, around which the objects are fixed in specific places, and a set of rules is defined in the canvas.
Also defined as a point of disappearance, cessation, or extinction. Nothing beyond it.
As I gaze thoughtfully out of the window at the fast receding landmarks of the world below, the vanishing point of this great piece of art eludes me. The spread is too vast to be caged in by a central point, the perspective too broad, after all it is a living breathing multidimensional piece of art, needs no illusions. It s beyond the human eye to fathom the depth of this creation.
The green fields, the brown deserts, the tall forests, the meandering rivers and the proud mountains all seem to be coexisting in a peaceful harmony. As we rise higher, the world as I know it, slowly melts into a silent mass.
Where are the lines that demarcate the states and the countries ? Surely the Master Craftsman could not have overlooked this vital detail in the blueprint?
The symbols that denote this land as meant for one faith and that land for another are nowhere. Neither can I hear the bells of a temple nor the azaans of a mosque.
As I look down at the glistening ribbon of a river below, I wonder if it makes any difference to the mighty river that it’s waters run as  Yarlung Tsangpo in southwestern Tibet,the Dihang in China and then the Brahmaputra in India ? Does the Indus care at all that 5% of it runs in India and the rest in Pakistan?
I was brought up to appreciate the world around me , in what can be loosely described as a bottom-up  approach, so when I look down on the gradually receding territorial aspects, thinking of the top-down perspective fills me with a strange uncertainty and some questions to ponder over.
What is the truth and which way was it meant to be? To celebrate the oneness of it all or dwell in the individual carved out beliefs driven by geography,religion and politics?  Or does the truth lie somewhere in between ?Where did Man go wrong? Surely ‘Homo Sapiens’ is the most evolved form of life or is it ?
As I turn back from the window, Karl Knausgaard’s words come to my mind. In his acceptance speech in Berlin, 2015 he remarked that in our humanity there is a vanishing point and we step in and out of it  from definite to indefinite and vice versa as we shift in each other’s perspective.
I wonder how much a better place the world would be,if we could broaden our perspectives to become so multidimensional that there is no need of our dogmas to act as the vanishing points of our mental landscape.
After all, it is said that  the narrower our field of vision, the more fixated we become on the vanishing point.
In reality,the picture is much much bigger than we care to think of.
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