I love to stay in public places. There is something wonderful about being in airports, train stations, malls, shopping complexes and watching the multitudes of humans around us; their faces raft with expressions reflecting the myriad emotions and thoughts running amock in the cosmic field of their minds; each of them being the rulers in their own world; their own concerns; completely oblivious of their minuscule presence in a much larger ecosphere. Its an amazing show playing continuously 24/7, all 365 days, with the actors shifting stages - one in which from a different relative point of view, I too am a part of!
It is indeed an experience that I had in one such crowded railway compartment that has prompted me to write after a long sojourn. We call ourselves human isn't it? What more? We are educated humans! Well employed, comfortably settled, and able in various aspects - social, physical, financial, etc etc etc. But then, how often have we truly been "human", "educated", and "civilized"?
How many of us have extended a helping hand to a person struggling with luggages? Made a stranger in a place, comfortable? Helped a recluse person in a corner of a party, to feel at ease and mingle with everyone? Education, as such that we have obtained, has only increasingly built barriers between hearts. It has created an unjust inequality. Be it the exploitation of the same by the political parties on the pretext of empowerment of the lower castes (through reservations) or any major degree holder putting down another person with less qualification. The student community in India has finally made its voice and opinion heard regarding the reservation in educational institutions. It is time, that we all also dwelve deep inside us, and take a hard close look at the reservations we harbor in our hearts and minds - of discrimination, of callousness, of negligence, of inhumanity. One need not commit a grave crime to be called a monster. We are all monsters at some point of time. Those moments when we chose to ignore the old person trying hard to cross a street, shut our eyes to the travails of elderly travellers trying to figure their way out in airports or train stations or bus stops, ignored the frail person struggling hard to pull his luggage out of the belt, extended our cold stare to a stranger looking for a smiling face - all of these and much more are instances of our inhumanity, that somehow seems insignificant, and negligible. Are we educated? Are we truly human?
1 comment:
Yes we are. I see a living example right before me, another poignant post of whom I am just done reading.
:)
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