Introduction

This chapter is born out of a dialogue between two solitudes—the solitude of the outside and of the solitude inside. The solitude of the outside may be found in the enormous, vacant stretches of the world, the icy wastes of Siberia, the emptiness of the tundra in North America or the deserts of Africa. This kind of solitude is very much out there; it hits you in the middle of the eye.

Vast, empty spaces, totally devoid of people, large swathes of wilderness, whiteness of snow or starkness of sand that hurts the eye. Canada is a country of such solitudes. Most of its population is huddled within a hundred miles of the border with the United States. The rest of the hulking continent in the North is practically devoid of people. It is too cold and too forbidding to attract substantial human habitation as yet. When I first visited Canada in summer 2000, I saw large cities, full of lit-up buildings and a vast network of bright streets, but with hardly any people. We drove into our hotel in Calgary in the evening, passing through empty lots and subdued suburbs, with not a soul in sight.

There is another immense solitude, the solitude of India, the country I live and work in. It is not the emptiness of the outdoor landscapes, but the fullness of chidakash, the limitless firmament of consciousness, the terrain of silence and new creation.