Respect
As I tied up my shoe laces I glanced at my watch - the hands were slowly inching their way towards 9. A soft groan escaped my lips as I added on to my tally of being marked late for office. I made a dash to the kitchen, picked up a yellowed apple and tried to accomplish the twin activities of walking briskly and munching on it.
The only thing beautiful about the morning was the cricket field – the blades of grass shimmering in the winter sun and magnifying their ‘greenness’ with each passing day.
As a walked across the field, I spotted the curator and his assistant watering the cricketing pitch. Gazing at me the assistant raised his hands in a respectful ‘salaam’. And then he said – ‘Sir, I want to have a chat with you.’ He asked me if I was getting transferred out of the place. I said I would be moving out in a month. He told me that the news of my transfer had made him really sad and he was hoping that somehow I would get the order repealed and stay on. I brought a polite end to the conversation and kept on moving. I dismissed the words of the man as pure melodrama – an attempt to get closer to his sahib…
But I was proved wrong – throughout the day, lots of people came up to me and told me how sad they felt that I was leaving – these were the people with whom I had spent two years of my life in Munger – a town so obscure that people would not be able to pin point its location on the map of India. And that set me thinking – what had I done right over the past couple of years that made them feel so attached to me?
As I tried to remember the countless conversations that I had had in this place I remembered the words of a bartender – He had told me that what he found most striking about me was that about me was that I talked to everybody regardless of his or her social status in the same tone. ( I think it was more a subconscious action of my part rather than being intentional !! )
That set me thinking – in a world where we are so blinded by the color of money the nature of our relationships is not dictated by respect for man as an individual by his status in society. How often do we dismiss our maid servants with disdain! Would we treat our bosses in office in the same manner? Why is it that though we have evolved technologically, the quality of human relationships has been on a downward spiral?
History has shown that whenever a class of rulers has brutally oppressed its people, the tides of time have turned against them – The British Empire disintegrated slowly when it could no longer respect the right to self determination of its subjects. Closer home, the Dalits or the oppressed castes have roared to power in the state of Uttar Pradesh by sweeping the assembly polls. Centuries of oppression by the higher castes had stoked a desire for ‘social independence’ which inched its way to becoming a reality in the political battlefields of India.
If only we learn to respect each other…. Wouldn’t the world be a better place?
The only thing beautiful about the morning was the cricket field – the blades of grass shimmering in the winter sun and magnifying their ‘greenness’ with each passing day.
As a walked across the field, I spotted the curator and his assistant watering the cricketing pitch. Gazing at me the assistant raised his hands in a respectful ‘salaam’. And then he said – ‘Sir, I want to have a chat with you.’ He asked me if I was getting transferred out of the place. I said I would be moving out in a month. He told me that the news of my transfer had made him really sad and he was hoping that somehow I would get the order repealed and stay on. I brought a polite end to the conversation and kept on moving. I dismissed the words of the man as pure melodrama – an attempt to get closer to his sahib…
But I was proved wrong – throughout the day, lots of people came up to me and told me how sad they felt that I was leaving – these were the people with whom I had spent two years of my life in Munger – a town so obscure that people would not be able to pin point its location on the map of India. And that set me thinking – what had I done right over the past couple of years that made them feel so attached to me?
As I tried to remember the countless conversations that I had had in this place I remembered the words of a bartender – He had told me that what he found most striking about me was that about me was that I talked to everybody regardless of his or her social status in the same tone. ( I think it was more a subconscious action of my part rather than being intentional !! )
That set me thinking – in a world where we are so blinded by the color of money the nature of our relationships is not dictated by respect for man as an individual by his status in society. How often do we dismiss our maid servants with disdain! Would we treat our bosses in office in the same manner? Why is it that though we have evolved technologically, the quality of human relationships has been on a downward spiral?
History has shown that whenever a class of rulers has brutally oppressed its people, the tides of time have turned against them – The British Empire disintegrated slowly when it could no longer respect the right to self determination of its subjects. Closer home, the Dalits or the oppressed castes have roared to power in the state of Uttar Pradesh by sweeping the assembly polls. Centuries of oppression by the higher castes had stoked a desire for ‘social independence’ which inched its way to becoming a reality in the political battlefields of India.
If only we learn to respect each other…. Wouldn’t the world be a better place?
posted by Shreerang at 4:45 PM
1 Comments:
i think more than making the world a better place, repsect to fellow being would bring in a lot of internal peace and comfert..most of the times when we dont show repsect, it kind of pains at a subconsous level when u introspect..
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