In The World Of Wonder

Our ability to wonder is the magic key that unlocks the scintillating world of discovery, invention, knowledge, play, and finally self-realisation, says Purnima Coontoor

- Purnima Coontoor

One morning, a man started playing the violin standing outside a metro station in Washington DC. He played six famous masterpieces of great composers for about 45 minutes. It being the rush hour, hundreds of people went through the station. But barring a few who slowed down to listen for a while and throw a few coins into his hat, people hurried on their way to their destinations. Among the only attentive audience were children, who, tagging along their parents, stopped to listen to the violinist. But they were invariably forced to move along by the adults who were clearly in a hurry. The children kept looking back at him and straining to listen even as they were dragged away. In all, the violinist collected 32 dollars in 45 minutes, and when he stopped there was just one who walked up and spoke to him.

The violinist, apparently, was celebrated musician Joshua Bell, whose concert was sold out just three days earlier in a Boston theatre at approximately $100 a seat. This experiment in social behavior was set up by Washington Post to assess the perception, taste and priorities of people in contemporary times.

I read aloud this Whatsapp forward at the breakfast table that morning, and went on to list the implications of this experiment, most obviously the lack of time and inclination among most of us to recognise and appreciate beauty in commonplace situations. “So?” remarked my software engineer son dismissively, “Which idiot would expect a celebrity to perform incognito at a metro station, when people have a million things on their minds? There should be a time and place for everything. I hope this was one inference that was derived from this exercise.” My husband grunted in agreement, both left for work in a flurry of activity as I sighed in resignation.