We, the uncouth…….
It is no news that we humans are the most selfish and the
rudest and the baddest living beings on this planet!
Humanity isn’t a word that should mean all that is good and
kind and compassionate…
Humane shouldn’t really convey sympathy and civility…..
Why am I being so depressing and sad?
Well I saw and heard first-hand how miserable our race can
be recently. And I am not even talking about rapes or wars or torture chambers
or anything else on that scale. On a day to day basis we bear witness to deeds
of unkindness which pinch our soul and more often than not, we just do not
react. All around us things are going wrong and we just do not want to get
involved because it shall reflect on our career maybe or may drag us willy
nilly into some legal mess. So in the words of Mahatma Gandhi are we as guilty
as Bheeshma was?
Oh I hope not! I hope we can redeem ourselves better than
that.
Three incidents:
A colleague of mine recently was so traumatised when a
patient misbehaved with her recently. Whilst my colleague was still working,
some material fell on the patient’s tongue and the patient reacted by removing
it and smearing it all over my friend’s arm….. My friend just didn’t know how
to react. She just wiped it off and continued with her procedure and then cried
herself crazy for a week. Is this done? How could the patient behave like that?
And she was from the entertainment industry. So was she just enacting the role
of a Neanderthal? Or did she suffer from temporary blindness and thought that my
friend’s arm was a towel? Disgusting cheapo!
I was dining with a friend of mine at her place and had to
witness her being unbearably boorish and mean to her help. It just got so bad
that I finally got up and left on the pretext of having left a door open at my
home, without even completing my meal. Should I have spoken to my friend about
what she was doing? Did I do right in just walking away? I don’t know, but one
thing is for sure it’s very very unlikely that I shall ever go back to her
home.
Another friend of mine owns a store and had a customer who was
the crème de la crème of society. The customer was haranguing a sales staff and
snatching things off shelves and strewing them all over the floor, and it was
to this scene that my friend walked in. My friend politely asked her to hand
things she didn’t want to the sales staff rather than dunking them around. To
which the customer replied- “isn’t she paid to replace the stuff?” At this
point my friend simply asked her to leave and never come back. She has my
admiration for life. Even at the cost of losing loads of business she still did
this.
I think we all need to take a stand, maybe not in major ways
but certainly with small baby steps. These shall lead to constructive social
censure for sure. Just a thought!
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