Safe Haven
We live in exciting times. In many ways I wouldn't want to be born other than right now, where the breath and scope of technology, innovation and
communication is mind boggling, where travelling around the world in eighty days is no longer a marvel or where you no longer have to risk life and
limb to buy exotic foods and spices and where in the safety and comfort of your own home, you can watch gourmands in London, California, Australia,
Japan and even Singapore show you where their favourite eating haunts are, anywhere and everywhere across the globe.
The best time to be, the pundits say and rightly so. And yet, why is it, with all these achievements, with all these accomplishments, we still can't
conquer or eradicate the most basic of problems. In India, potable drinking water is still very much a scarcity. In China, not a day goes by without a
story of exceeding cruelty and poverty and in Africa, hunger is still very much in the news.
Yet, before we think this is a poor country syndrome, where it happens only in so called third world countries, let's also remember the struggles the
richer countries like England and the US have in their own battles against poverty, education and crime.
No one is safe. It seems.
I have a friend who tells me bad things only happen to other people. That nice looking man stricken with stomach cancer at thirty? Other people. That child molested
and raped at five? Other people and that doctor entrapped in a gay drug bust? Other people.
True. It always happens to other people. Or so it seems. I personally don't know anybody going through a tragedy. And I suspect many of us don't live
sad stories. Ironically, where the world is so super efficient with the latest gadgets and technology, where communication should reach us in a blink of an
eye, where radio is no longer the sole means of global communication, we remain ignorant of our neighbours and friends who may need our help. We remain
ignorant or plead ignorance.
Safe haven is a collection of drawings that reflect a place each of us want to be when we are either happy, sad or just in need. Who we reach out to, who
we speak to, must remain our own personal challenge but sometimes, it's nice when a stranger reaches out to help. Like Blanche in Tennessee William's A
Streetcar Named Desire, wouldn't it be nice if we could count on the comfort of strangers.
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