Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Apathy?


                                                                                   
If there were ashes flying in the air
Would you be glad to see it?
And if snowflakes instead were there
Will from your eyes, emanate tears?
In mornings when your feet touch soft grass
Do they ever painfully sear?
And if you know somewhere a child is without meal
Will you still dare to waste a supper?
Or if an evil you confront in present
Will you welcome its footsteps into the future?
I know your answer is ‘no’
Because we are under our control and we know
The right, the wrong, the good , the bad
We can identify the comforts, the discomforts,
what makes us and people happy and sad
Then how with such ease, do we chose to suture
The mask made of ignorance towards suffering of others?
Look into your own eyes in the mirror
And try to evade the above question..

If you’re thinking I’m going to talk about compassion and kindness and mercy, then may be you are mistaken!!

What I actually want to highlight though is the complexity  of human mind (not anatomically). I wonder how could I enjoy a delicious meal while watching television, just five minutes after reading an article on the condition of slum dwellers in Mumbai. Obviously my mind was numbed by the joy my taste buds provided it with.

OK. Well I think that I am going to talk about compassion and ignorance. Continue reading. So let me throw some light on what I read about the condition of slum dwellers in Mumbai. Kids over there, at times, have to kill rats and feed on them. Other alternative may be collecting grass grown near a pool of stagnant water or some ponds (where we better-offs would chose to shut our noses and mouth). Lack of education and opportunities make working in nearby hotels as waiters, a dream job. They rattle junk materials in search of metals and to differentiate them. And so on. And I pledged that I would not waste any food thereafter. But I couldn’t keep my own promise; may be because I am not ‘Chulbul Pandey’ of our typical Bollywood movie ‘Dabangg’, whose famous dialogue goes like, Ekbaar jo maine commitment kardi to phir main khud ki bhi nahi sunta.” ( “if I commit once , then I do not even listen to myself.”). Also I am no Mother Teresa and likes. So what can I do? And a prequel to this question is, “Do I need to do anything?”

I read all sort of bad articles, news on atrocities being committed in this world, in present, in history, and those that will take place in near future. I get moved, both emotionally and literally. I take a step ahead and forget. I may remember all the bad things that have happened in he past and get depressed but not once do I think of those underprivileged, I read about in the past, and then get depressed. I need to be keep myself abreast with such news to feel bad about them, or passionate about them. And I think most of the people reading or not reading this piece of article share the same story.

Well, as for now, I do the minimum I can do to help the underprivileged. I hope I raise myself to the platform where I will be competing in the field of philanthropy. For now, I need to compete in other fields to feed my stomach and my ambitions. The starvation for philanthropy is yet not felt by me. It's concealed and subjugated by the selfishness and greediness of my mind, just like those kids’ starvation is concealed by them, behind the veil of ignorance, helplessness, capitulation to their fate…


Image source: http://www.sonrays.org/2011_05_01_archive.html

34 comments:

  1. unless it happens to you or to someone you know...its a story...and the usual reaction to any story is to grasp it, understand it, feel the emotions and then its your choice if you want to retain any lesson in that story or if you just want to forget it...disasters are easy to remember because of their scale...yet what you would remember would be..oh there was a blast and so many people got hurt...yet you would rarely think about how they were surviving now...what you could do for them...the underprivileged suffer from tragedies too small scale for the regular human being...you see them yet you fail to acknowledge them because of the repugnance their conditions makes you feel...we try to run away from what is scary, unclean and unnatural rather than to look through it to the problems, the people and how we can help them....charity is for disasters...for the underprivileged the solution is not just giving...but teaching them to take what's their rightfully so that you don't have to give anymore....so we need to take one step, any step and no matter how many times we falter, forget or ignore, remember and take that step again..

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  2. oh when i say you, i mean we... :)

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  3. Awesome piece of writing Sakshi and nice thought... Pooja is actually right...

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    1. Thank You Rinachi...actually it is nice hearing from you after a long time..and I'm sorry..couldn't give you the opportunity of judging the whole debate ;):)

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  4. @PJ: Sadly, I don't think we are going have a debate on this...What you said is absolutely right and even i believe in the same...what the underprivileged need more often is not our sympathy or charity, but the opportunity and the resources that will empower them, and make them self-sufficient. but who is going to provide them with the opportunities and resources to them? how much and how many of them can they struggle enough to come at par with the more privileged ones..also it's a combination of luck and hard work that help them come out of their misery..so what I was talking of was that we( or at least I in this case) who are better offs have to feel something or generate enough passion to come ahead and help them at some point of time if not now..and to generate enough passion we need to retain that feeling and not just shed it off our shoulders as a mere news as you very well pointed out..
    the whole blog post was to retain some memory, some feelings regarding the whole issue of underprivileged and their upliftment so that we can take a step forward..this is what we need as the first step to work towards their need..I hope you realized that we were actually talking on the same lines and that felt nice :):)

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  5. U know what, Sakshi.. The best way to actually look at this will come to you only after very myriad experiences in life. When you are at a stage where you are earning good money, being a responsible citizen, both for your workplace as well as for your parents, you will automatically want to give something back to society.. Which is when you will see opportunities will open up. My suggestion would be..Continue to feel the way you do. If the feelings are genuine, I am sure one day very soon you will be able to contribute, and then there will be just no comparison to the degree of mental satisfaction you get.

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    1. Rightly said..and I do look forward to help underprivileged..let's see when it happens!!

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  6. "I take a step ahead and forget", that's the bitter truth. Another thoughtful post...

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    1. forget it for a time being but do remember during the steps ahead..This is what I believe.

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  7. Wonderful!

    Its sad how everything is inherited. Even the right to knowledge or right to live a good healthy life in a way. A child born in rich family gets all the comfort and best education even if he/she might not be worth it and then on other hand a prodigy born in a poor family shall o unnoticed. It sometimes make me think if the privileged worked out a systematic way of building a commercialized world to ensure that there is always an under privileged somewhere to keep the divide alive.

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    1. Thank You :) and yes it is sad indeed..and it's true that we unconsciously work consistently to maintain the divide in a very subtle, hypocrite manner though..

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  8. I'm following your blog now;Also I've placed a badge on my blog page. Thank You.

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  9. Very thoughtful poem...Made me think for a while :)

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  10. lovely poem...:)
    ok here's a thing charity begins at home..:)
    help yr mum,dad,siblings in watever way u can...:)
    and small acts of kindness is equivalent to millions given in the name of philanthropy....so just chill u dnt have to chnge the world like mother Teresa did ..u do watevr little u can do everydy to make sumone smile..if only that brings u eternal joy within....be happy and help other to be happy :)

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    1. rightly said..
      well i do indulge in the little acts of kindness..but i think that's not enough for me or i don't know who decides the magnitude of those acts of kindness..little confused..but i'll figure out eventually..!!

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  11. Well said, Sakshi!

    Didn't the wise man say ... Be the change you wish to see in the world!

    We definitely can make a difference if we care.

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  12. Excellent post. You've piqued my interest with this one :)

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  13. gosh! that poetry......loved it .......and ufcourse the article...awesomely written

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  14. Brilliant. I for one fall in the category of the one who needs to keep abreast of the atrocities committed in order to feel the urge for philanthropy. Very honest post this one. Thanks for sharing. "For now, I need to compete in other fields to feed my stomach and my ambitions. The starvation for philanthropy is yet not felt by me." - so true. I think that the starvation needs to be induced. Its like sitting and thinking about all types of chocolates or food stuff and you suddenly feel the urge to have some, even if your stomach is full. But the problem being that in this case, we act. When we feel the same about helping those i need, we do not act. Instead we focus on all the reasons why we can not act. 'we' here means 'I', okay?

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    1. very true..and in this case, I consider myself to be part of that 'we' and that is what I feel bad about..but then as you said, I just feel bad not catapulting into any action!!

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  15. I resonate completely with your thinking. Not only underprivileged, we don't or can't help morally and financially the helpless privileged also. Recent incident of Sonali Mukherjee, the acid attack victim,is an example of the same.

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    1. and yet we lead our lives with shameless indifference towards these things..

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  16. You have highlighted the cause of the underprivileged. Hope this inspires many more like you into action:)

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  17. First time here, this is a nice read.

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