“Why do you always write something that is serious, why don’t write something humorous?”
“ Romba think pannadha, freeya vidu!!”
“Its just one life, take things easily……you need not reflect so much on things happening around you!!”
Can’t just blame people around me. After a point I myself thought I shouldn’t be contemplating too much. Then I meet a couple of people who also think like me. Encouraging ….then I get to read something that is disturbing. …the Manju Nathan’s case (Machaans)
I can really understand when his friends express so much of anguish and grief over his death. Have you ever felt proud shedding tears? I did. I was reading this one article by Meera Seth. It really moves me because I am able to put in her position when she talks of Machaan.
I was seeing a clipping on NDTV a year ago, a man getting hit by an electric train in Mumbai railway station. He falls down on the platform in a pool of blood. What does the crowd do? Avoid the man who had fallen down and just carry on with their work. So much of public apathy in our hearts!! How and when did we get to inculcate such an attitude of indifference towards fellow humans?
Shouldn’t we take time to reflect where we have gone wrong?
You’ll see a lot of my writing here similar to the article in business world by Meera Seth.
In every one of us there is a killer. The difference between us and the killer of Manju is that one has killed other hasn’t. I remember reading a quote yesterday “I trust everyone of you but for the devil inside you”.
Those questions that I have mentioned above are similar in a way to these phrases “life must go on” “Time is the best healer”.
The point is that may be time will heal the absence of Manju Nathan but not our callousness, our insensitivity. When we ask the question of why should we remember and reflect on something serious aren’t we living in a denial? We want all these things to get over soon and be in our own comfort zone.
I am happy being the serious guy. I can’t definitely do what Manju Nathan did. Nor do I have the guts to stand up against the system. But I think I can get sensitive to things and make at least a couple of people around me sensitive to things. When there are reports such as this in the media about crime, wars, earthquake or tsunami I shall definitely not be someone who just thinks “Yeh sab hota rehta hai”.
I was reading an article where the writer was differentiating the Indian attitude and the American attitude. This was an article after September 11 attack. As I read the article even I was as proud as the writer. He wrote that unlike the Americans who were making so many hue and cries we Indians after Bombay bomb blast took it in our stride. He went on saying how children in a couple of days were playing cricket near the bomb site.
After reading the article even I was convinced of our approach to life as best. But now I have a different thinking.
The magnitude of media attention that goes when an American soldier is shot in America is way above to what our media gives to soldiers being blown by naxals.
Anbesivam is a one of the favorite movie for many of us. The central idea is if your heart feels for others, shares others pain you have god residing inside you. Wouldn’t it be great if each one of us took responsibilities for the actions we do.
The scene in Tanjore hospitals after deadly tsunami had struck. I believe many of us can feel for this little child who was a victim to this disaster for no fault of hers.
I remember when I was leaving for Chennai after a short stay at Nagapattanam when I was with SUYAM, Bhaskar one of the local fishermen had come to see us off. He handed me a Cadbury chocolate. I could definitely see hope in his eyes. It’s not just money or a cheque of Rs.4000 that these victims of tsunami cherished. It was human concern for their lives that mattered to them. He is expecting things to change through all of us.
Life is valuable whether it is of Manju Nathan or a soldier in the border or a beggar on the street. On each of the cases we need to reflect why a life should be lost because of a crime or a war or of hunger.
I think and I want all of us to think collectively.
I just don`t want to end by just asking questions. Even if I made people think I have been only half successful. We need to do much more than just thinking. I know I am expecting a lot from all of us including myself.
This is Anand. He has a nice smile here on this picture. But things were`nt this smooth a fortnight back.
This brave guy lost his mother in the tsunami disaster. Even before the paramilitary troops that went for handling the situation in nagapattanam after 4 days of the disaster he gathered a group of young men from his village trying to find people and clean the village of the corpses. Once primary relief work was done he did`nt stop with that. He called up SUYAM and said" they were 15 young men from akkraipettai( the most affected village ) and they were ready to do anything for making their village a place to live as it was before."
Shouldn't we learn from the grit shown by this man who has seen the pain through his naked eyes on DEC 26th, felt agony with the loss of his mother but still ready to make a difference for a bigger cause.
ANAND won "seyal veerar" award (a bravery award) from TVS groups for his contribution. We need many more SEYAL VEERARS.
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5 comments:
I respect your thoughts. But mere sensitizing few people around you is not sufficient. We all have the capability of doing something more.The best thing is to lead by an example. When you see a person dying on the road, do you run forward to help him ? I don't see any reason why you should not. May be you are waiting for the crowd to take some step and may be every person in the crowd is thinking the same. so who is to be blamed now?
Time can be a healer. But every time we forgot an incidence like this, our meomory is refereshed by a new incidence. We feel sorrow,we grieve about him/her and again we say that "Time is the best healer". Our life thus becomes full of such incidences and if we look at it as whole, we find that we have spent more time in greiving about others and trying to forget the reality than enjoyin the true beauty of life. So what have we got out of our life ?
To get something out of it, we all have to do something or the other which can help in anyway the idealogy of great indians like Machaan.
Until then, we are no different from an indian whose life is dedicated to pleasures, money and enjoyment.
hey jc.. whatever scarce resource that we have we will value it. repect it and use it wisely..
but alas human resource in india, iam sorry to say, is not scarce and hence not valued(orphaned children on th streets, people dying on the roads due to want of help), respected(people like manju being killed) or used wisely(jawans killed by the dozens)..
as long as this attitude continues there is nothing, NOTHING we can do to sensetise people to human disasters going on around them.. this is a very pragmatic look at the system..
callous? uncaring? insenstive? lazy?
but the truth.. people have it in them to help each other. very much. but circumstances force them to look the other way..
rationalising and avoiding my duty? i did rather not speak about it for i have done the same .. and evry day i bear the shame of having looked the other way..
i have more questions now than answers...!!! what do we do?
can`t just leave things as they are right? then ur question will be what can be done?
the answer and the deed for that answer is not easy at all.
might not look pragmatic.many wud call utopian or idealistic but I think some answer is better than no answer
nothing can be done about natural disaster...who can...but certain can reach out to people who want support. But never can tell that nothing can be done agaist a tragedy through human cause. This is what i call ...the killer resides in everyone of us. It is just that one killed manju and the other is indifferent to the system that killed manju
In such a huge country with extra-huge population it is impossible to make a revolutionary change right at the first shot. let us first try for a sense of oneness within a smaller group, where everyone acknowledge the other, respect each other but in a small gramam to start with. If the soldier is dead, everyone in his gramam should feel proud about it, if a person is murdered his place should rise up with responsibility. Such a feeling of unity can then be spread across districts, states and country as a whole.
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