Say Delhi

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

I'm writing to you from a log cabin we rented in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. Usually, at this time of the year, to celebrate GH's birthday, we would be traveling abroad, in Asia or Europe on alternate years. This year the pandemic forced us to cancel plans to visit, first, India, then, Montreal-Toronto, then, Nova Scotia, then, even Maine. We settled for a short vacation in our own state. It would be a respite from the city's August temperatures and a change in our pandemic routine.

Thanks to GH's assiduous research, we've found a charming temporary home, artistically designed and decorated. We've read in the wide hammock, played croquet in the weedy lawn, grilled hamburgers outdoor, and stared into the reverse meteors flying up from the fire pit. We've also paid a visit to "India," or rather the nearby town of Delhi, pronounced DEL-hy alas, and wasted an afternoon wading in a shallow branch of the Delaware River.

Even in the cool greenery of our retreat, however, there is no escape from the wider world, and nor should there be. From PBS radio we learned that Joe Biden has picked Kamala Harris as his running mate. On Zoom I continued to tutor my three Beijing students, who still do not know when they can return to their American schools and what kind of welcome they will receive. On a Singaporean news website, in a remarkable show of solidarity, 23 local environmental groups call on the government to do more for the country's migrant workers besieged by the virus.

The fact is that, at this point in human history, we don't have to be in India to be of India. Delhi the capital may be pronounced differently from Delhi the small NY town, but the connections between them go beyond the same spelling. Something is evolving in human consciousness, a sense of the tightening weave of our mutual fates. It is not a comfortable sensation especially when we are confronted by the world's injustices and inequities, but the discomfort may be nurtured to prompt us to act. Earth is not enough for all our appetites, but it is certainly enough for all our needs. It is perhaps even enough for all of us to visit Delhi, capital or town, once in our life.

Jee Leong Koh
August 13, 2020

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