Midday Moments
A couple of weeks ago, a midday poetry reading session was
held. Literary aficionados, Bari Mian and Wajid Jawad read out a selection of
poems, with members of the audience contributing their own favourites. In the
midst of the mayhem of war, there was something restorative and moving about
these two speakers, each with a small well-thumbed pocket sized notebook bursting
with paper bookmarks marking the poems to be read.
Most cultural events are held in the evenings, often extending
well into the night. This was different. A couple of hours in the middle of the
day. A hiatus between the busyness of the morning and what may well be a
fraught evening. It was not a rest, a siesta, but a secret energizing, a waking
of the soul when many in the city were bent over desks, reconciling accounts.
Midday is seen as a powerful time of the day, when the sun
is at its zenith, creating no shadow. A
time of sharp clarity, intensity, perfect illumination, exposing the truth of
things.
In Slavic and German folklore, Lady Midday was believed to
be a spirit that haunted fields at noon, to dissuade those working in the heat.
Christian monks refer to the “noonday demon” that creates restlessness and
apathy causing them to believe their work is meaningless.
For Native Americans midday is a time of intense energy and spiritual
vigilance when the boundary between the physical and spiritual world is active.
In epics like the Mahabharata, noon is portrayed as a quiet turning point when
the sun seems to pause, marking a moment for decision-making or action.
Noel Coward wrote “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday
sun”, referring not to the weak English sun, but the intense sun of its
colonies that could not deter the colonial enterprise. “When the white man
rides, every native hides in glee/Because the simple creatures hope he will
impale his solar topee on a tree. It seems such a shame when the English claim
the earth/That they give rise to such hilarity and mirth.”
Priest and philosopher, Romano Guardini, sees midday as a
pause, not from weariness, but as “a pure present when strength and energy are
still at the full.” It is a time for a person to re-collect themselves,
"spreading out before their heart the problems that have stirred them.”
Nietzsche in his book, Thus Spake Zarathushtra, sees the “Great Noon” as the high point of
humanity, the moment when we finally abandon all those “lies” - ideals,
beliefs, moral principles, which are “exact opposite of the ones which would
ensure man's prosperity, his future, and his great right to a future.” It is a “moment
of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error.” It is a calm like no other,
a mystic intuition of truths disclosed in the midst of life. The “Great Midday”
represents a stage of civilization that has overcome its savage past, but faces
nihilism, or the loss of morality, values and purpose.
The term High Noon, made famous by the 1952 Western film,
became an idiom for a final, dramatic showdown, a moment of confrontation, the ultimate
test, an event which is likely to decide the final outcome of a situation. Jean-François
Rischard, a former Vice President of the World Bank, was the first to use the
term in a political context in his 2002 book, High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20
Years to Solve Them. It has since become a catch phrase for describing the
crises of world politics.
James Plunkett, author of End State, writing in 2024 asked “Why
is it hard to put a finger on the political moment we’re in?” Perhaps 2026 has
brought clarity as the world faces a critical time of intense superpower
rivalry, a volatile period where new coalitions are replacing the old.
Plunkett notes, in the midst of banal AI generated content, it
is also a time of unusual intellectual vitality, the rise of slow
well-researched journalism, that braves the scorching political heat of this
midday, asking the right question - not how we can ‘buy’ a better future, but how
we can envision a better world. How can we govern in poetry, not prose?
Durriya Kazi
March 21,
2026
Karachi
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