I was in Edinburgh last month -well, actually end September, and promise to write later about these very delightful, beautiful capital of Scotland at a later date.
What i must, must tell you all about is this wonderful, unexpected encounter i had with one of my 'heroes' during this trip (thank you Chevening & King's college).
I had done little homework (on things to do) before i came to Edinburgh..i kind of thought i would go with the flow. After all i barely had a weekend, one of which was taken up with a day-tour (avoidable, unless you like regimented sight-seeing).
What i learnt during this tour (yeah, i was surfing the net, when Google uncle informed me that John Muir was born in Scotland. Did i hear you say: John Muir who?
Well, if you don't know who, you don't know me....
But in the interest of not losing all my friends, John Muir was one of the world's greatest naturalists. He was in the words of the Seira Club (which he founded in 1892): a farmer, inventor, sheepherder, naturalist, explorer, writer, and conservationist.
To me, he was the man who was the 'father of National Parks', that great visionary who thought of keeping wilderness, wild; of safegaurding our natural heritage for future generations.
He was the man who said, "“The mountains are calling and I must go.” (this echoes in my heart…)
I also love this one: “The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”
Significantly, Muir was a key influence on President Theodore Roosevelt, who--and few know this--was a great naturalist and conservationist, and put this issue high on the national agenda. (Where are you, Roosevelt, we need you so!). As the story goes, Roosevelt read Muir’s work 'Our National Parks', and visited him in 1903, in Yosemite. And there, together, beneath the trees, they laid the foundation of Roosevelt's innovative and notable conservation programs.
How I wonder at such a leader, how I long for such wisdom in our leadership, how I wish I was born at that time…when governments led the conservation, when you did not fight governments to protect environment.
So when I learnt that Muir’s birthplace was here, in Dunbar, in Scotland…I simply had to go.
And I scurried over to Mike, the enthusiastic, chatty driver of our tour, and asked him how I could get to Dunbar.
Just an hour away, he said, to my immense delight.
But why on earth do you want to go to Dunbar (just a tiny little place, ‘dead’ though beautiful , since it is on the coast, he said). Later, i learnt of another prime attraction, a run-down, ruined fort! and a very pretty, old church, which to the sorrow of the pastor was too 'new', built as recent as the 17th century! Well, it IS all relative, isn't it?
I told Mike about Muir, and he racked his brains, and thought, and pondered, before nodding his head. “Yeah, he said, there is a museum there. He is something to do with nature, right? But few people know about him, even , here in Scotland….”
Yes, few do. Sad, that while we lionise our warriors, we pay scant regard to those who battle and struggle to preserve the earth, and life around us.
Muir (1838-1914) had left Dunbar for America as a child, and was America's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist.
It is only in recent years that his home country has made efforts to conserve Muir’s legacy, and his birthplace-and home in Dunbar is now a museum (http://www.jmbt.org.uk/content/). And I was determined to go.
Even though we were to leave the next day, Sunday.
God bless my long-suffering friends Suman Sahoo and Shefali Juneja, both senior bureaucrats and my colleagues in the Chevening programme –who had no clue who (the hell) this Muir was. But in the face of my passion ate determination (I could see they were foxed!), dropped their plans for the day to accompany me. And off we went..
I, light of heart, giddy with anticipation—and somewhat guilty at dragging ‘em along, especially when we landed in this very sleepy (it was noon and everyone was asleep—or so it appeared. the market, cafes, everything was closed!
Including Muir’s museum.
Learnt it would open at one, giving me the grand total of five minutes to visit in, if we were to catch the bus to Edinburgh, to get back to London.
Well, to cut a long story short, it was a short-short visit, but I am so very glad I went..it is always so inspiring to be in the company of great men (and women), even if only in spirit.
Being there...reading him, reinforced to me the Power of One.
One man can change the world. Gandhiji 's life was that message.
And there are others.
Muir is one such man.
“Everybody needs beauty...places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.”
― John Muir
