“The summer is getting
on down below,” thought Bilbo, “and haymaking is going on and picnics. They
will be harvesting and blackberrying before we even begin to go down the other
side at this rate.” And the others were thinking equally gloomy thoughts,
although when they had said good-bye to Elrond in the high hope of a midsummer
morning they had spoken gaily of the passage of the mountains, and of riding
swift across the lands beyond.
To me, Bilbo’s angst illustrates the “if I
get to the grass on the other side, then life will be perfect” principle, or
maybe it’s the “rose-colored glasses” scenario. During the seven years before
our family made the long trek to Delhi, I had had to be satisfied with mere visions
of Indian take-out, the Bollywood scene, shopping at World Market, wearing
kurtis and bangles, reading books about India and, finally, fantasizing about turning
those dreams into reality. I am thankful that all those years of pent-up yearning
exploded into unbounded energy and enthusiasm when I arrived in country.
Eventually, however, the hard realities of
daily living in an overcrowded, noisy megalopolis exact a toll on my new-found
joy. Sadly, I end up sounding like Bilbo at the end of this chapter. Our little
friend finds himself on the back of a dwarf fleeing from goblins and exclaiming,
“Why, O why did I ever leave my hobbit hole!”
Although I have not had to flee for my life, living
in India presents its own army of “goblins”--leaky geezers (hot water heaters),
ill-placed water taps, and surprise power outages. When these things happen it is good for me to reflect on Bilbo’s words, and embrace those high hopes of a
midsummer morning!
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