BACK IN TIME

Earth Hour is coming up; the one time in the year when Sydney and other parts of Australia turn their lights off for an hour.

The sight of skyscrapers, their normal columns of light reflecting on to the harbour vanishing in an instant, is a subject of fascination for Sydney-siders.

It’s all to save the planet; a by-product of the now rapidly declining hysteria over global warming.

He remained at Buddha’s birthplace, Lumbini in Nepal.

As the Buddha or his own head promptly answered when he did his little three bows ritual in one of the oldest temples on the site, “You have already been blessed. You just don’t know it. Have a great day.”

And that was that.

Outside a sign implored devotees to be heedful amongst the heedless, awake amongst the blind, to be like a swift horse leaving behind an old nag.

Another instructed devotees to be mindful, heedful, to guard against heedlessness.

He had been entirely heedless; but that was another story.

If those in the West so busy saving the planet by turning their lights off for one hour once a year wanted to know what life would be like without electricity all they had to do was be where he was. All you had to do to witness a way of life barely changed in thousands of years was to walk to the end of the main street of Lumbini, where you enter an entirely agrarian culture.

The power in Nepal, intermittent at best, can go off for 24 hours at a time. Within a day of the power going off people's mobile phones are starting to die and the backup batteries in guesthouses catering to foreigners begin to die.

Much of the population doesn't even have that luxury. There are few television sets because there's little point when the power is only on intermittently, often in the early hours of the morning.

The only sign of habitation in many of the houses at night is a little pin prick of light from a single burning candle. There is no such thing as a washing machine. Women wash clothes at the nearest hand operated water pump; and no such thing as a heater, with again mostly women spending their days patting together straw and cow dung for fires. There's no such thing as refrigeration either; no cold beers; no frozen meat. A goat is killed, dissected and sold all within the same day; with buckets of water used to chase away the flies crawling over the flesh in the markets. There are almost no street lights; no pumping discos, electronic versions of music; or anything else.

Very unhappy looking chooks huddle underneath the bench of one of the shops, waiting to be slaughtered. They are killed, de-feathered, gutted, and sold all within a matter of hours.

There is almost no private transport and often the only sign that the last two centuries ever happened is the rubber wheels on some of straw laden carts. 

There are no computers either.

Far from playing computer games, children spend hours playing simple games such as spinning tops in the street or hanging out with each among the goats and water buffalo in the fields.

Without the constant materialism of television many of the people on bikes or walking long distances appear not to know the joys of civilisation they are missing and have the nerve to look happy!

But would many of those advocating Earth Hour be willing to abandon their televisions, washing machines and smart phones?

Would they be happy living in a town without street lights?