As a part of the Indian Society for the last 28 years, I have always looked around and pondered on a number of seemingly small things.
Why is there a pile of garbage lying around the corner of my street?
Why is 11 year old “Chotu” working in that “chai” shop and not going to school?
Why does Mr. Gupta have a general disregard of traffic rules?
Why does Mr. Sharma avoid drinking water in Mr. Khan’s house?
Why is my financially constrained neighbor not able to receive proper medical attention?
Why are some people living in uninhabitable conditions in that slum of my city?
People (me included) often see these things (and a thousand others like these) around themselves, feel sympathetic for about 2 minutes and then move on with their busy lives. On those few occasions when we actually are at the receiving end of one of these unpleasant situations, we get enraged, blame other people and the system in general for our misfortunes. We curse the system and wonder why the system is not being corrected (by someone else). When our situation is resolved, we again forget everything and then continue with our daily struggles. Seldom do we stop to think and analyze the situation and rarely do we understand that we are also a part of the system and can contribute in “changing” the system.
Sometimes, even if we do analyze the situation, find the root cause and then come up with a set of guiding principles that could be followed to prevent the re-occurrence of the said situation, a new problem starts from here. We want others to follow those principles without first applying those principles on ourselves. We just want others to change.
The rare few, who do try to change themselves, meet with new challenges every day. They see everyone else taking a shortcut, bypassing the rules and often feel why should I lag behind everyone else because of some stupid sense of morality? It becomes very difficult to follow these principles when almost everyone else around us has no regard for them. But, then I wonder, what if each one of us starts following these certain set of principles (that we have already laid down in our constitution)? In that dream world, our society will surely be a much better place for everyone.
When I was a kid, my father used to tell me a story. Once upon a time, there was a saint. One day, during his morning walk, he saw a scorpion drowning in the nearby lake. He tried to rescue the scorpion. But as soon as he tried to pull it out of water, it stung him. The saint again tried to pull it out of water, it again stung him. The saint kept on trying to pull it out of water, but each time he did so, the scorpion stung him. A man was watching this entire episode. After a while, he came to the saint and asked, “This creature is harming you each time you are trying to save it, but still you are persistent on saving it. Why so?” The saint replied, “Stinging is the nature of this creature and helping others is mine” and then continued with his efforts to save it. At times, I still try to contemplate the relevance of this story in the 21st century.