Editors' Note 2026-27

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength,

the conservationist Rachel Carson wrote exactly seven decades ago, in 1956. Today, perched atop all those lost years, we feel our sense of wonder - the reward of attending to life - being smothered by the civilisational overdrive for accumulation. Convinced that gratification of desires would bring lasting joy, we hanker after wealth, objects and extravagance, only for a gnawing sense of incompleteness to remain ever-present within us. The endless pursuit of achievement shifts our attention away from the ordinary aspects of life, leaving little to no room for the appreciation of the unspectacular. The price we pay for consumerism is indifference to the cosmos - the ultimate wellspring of our strength, sentience, and indeed our very self. It is no surprise, then, that we find ourselves relapsing into the very boredom and disenchantment Carson cautioned against. So binding is our alienation that few today would believe, as Whitman rapturously did, that

a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

And this very dearth of wonder is humankind's greatest blunder, for what good is this popular ‘nonchalance’? What shall you and I gain by expressing no surprise at the most surprising of revelations, by not acknowledging the brightest, most beautiful bounties of nature and fellow beings? Some ‘aura’? But how much more of a sunshine person do we hold the potential to be, by getting excited about the ‘smallest’ things, by looking for magic in the most mundane objects and people?

That is the premise which birthed DIRS's theme this year. We wondered, how difficult is it to be enthusiastic, to look for the concealed joys and to give an ear to the stories untold? How tough can it be, to look for magic in the rains that look like an inconvenience, and to find elation in a math answer that culminates in a satisfying simple integer? Indeed, how joyful would we feel when we learn that the rare music we loved has another admirer too, that the lectures we attend everyday shall all come together to result in a complete degree one fine day?

These are all such questions, the answers to which fill us with an inexplicable sense of hope, excitement, and above all, wonder. Wonder at how magic is hidden in the folds of the most ordinary people and things and events. As Jonathan Zap very rightly said,

Don't let the mundane get you down. The magical is always present as well.

And so, the Department of Inter-Religious Studies brings to you our theme for the year, ‘Wonder: Finding Magic in the Mundane’.

So look closely today at the chai turning amber in your cup, at a stranger's unprompted smile, at the way your eyes turn into hazel flecks as sunlight decides to fall through your window at 4 pm. Notice the friend who remembered a tiny detail about your day, the song that arrives on shuffle right when you needed it, the quiet satisfaction of a room finally put in order. These are not small things. They are mundane but carry so much wonder you cannot help but think this is the universe whispering to you.

Let yourself be astonished by the ordinary, again and again, the way a child is, the way Carson hoped we always would be. Because wonder was never hiding in some distant, extraordinary place, reserved for mountaintops and rare occasions, it was here all along, folded quietly into the everyday, patient, waiting for us to simply slow down and notice.

So here's to unlearning our indifference. Here's to a year of paying attention, of finding stardust in the mundane, and of remembering, as Carson did, as Whitman did, that even a blade of grass with morning dew carries the whole universe within it. Here's to wonder!