By Paramjit Bakhshi
Occasionally what the newspaper prints provides an apt beginning for a new article. A letter to the editor in today’s ST (28/4) by one Mr D Nongbet highlights the plight of his five year daughter because of the indifference of the staff at the Pine Mount. The second letter is about an assault on a doctor in Tura. Then there is a news item about a three year old being child beaten up at school. The headline in red colour screams about a case of cheating involving a prominent lawyer and an NRI. Then there is news about graft cases and finally a shocking statistic about the high number of households headed by women.
For the past three days, since the Nepal earthquake I have been expecting a local word of sympathy for the people of Nepal but none has been forthcoming in the papers. There is no report of any prayer service being organised, any homage being paid to victims, far less any donations being collected to help the Nepalese. It is not that Nepalese are people from Mars; they have lived amongst us for decades often in terrains where local people would not dream of living. In many ways they have contributed to the building of Shillong and Meghalaya. Yet our hearts are unable to go out to them.
The fact is that our hearts today are unable to go out for anybody. The non tribals of course are considered by some to be the least deserving of any sympathy but as often happens when people close their hearts then they cannot love anybody – even people of their own community. The news items mentioned above point to a lack of love which is so prevalent in our society. The “I, me and mine” attitude, which was once the hallmark of politics has spread insidiously to every section of the society and is the accepted norm. It reminds one of Yossarin in the bestselling book by Joseph Heller called “Catch 22”.
“From now on I’m thinking only of me.”
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: “But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way.”
“Then,” said Yossarian, “I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?”
Of course none of us in Shillong are fools. We all know how to keep our own backsides warm and comfortable. The truth is that we mostly come across as selfish and small hearted individuals.
I for one would certainly like to see a different set of news items? For one I would like to read about the Sherwood School at Tura where the Headmaster on finding a student ill doesn’t wait for the parent to arrive but drops the child home in his own car. I would like to find out about the big heartedness of the people from the same town who have already offered nine pigs for the wedding feast of a friend’s daughter which is due to take place next January. The friend says that she will have to refuse other similar offers now although she thinks many more friends will come forward. She in her turn has always gone out of the way to help the poor by even baking and selling cupcakes at throwaway prices. One would have also preferred highlighted the tremendous effort that India and other countries have undertaken to help the people of Nepal. I would have liked to read about our Air Force pilots who operated flights with prayers on their lips in the middle of many aftershocks. Mention could also have been made of a Gurudwara in Delhi sending a consignment of 25,000 food packets to Kathmandu daily. Even the efforts of our neighbouring state Assam are worthy of mention for they have helped rescue many people from their state without regard to ethnicity. A Nepali family from Shillong was also the beneficiary of their help and the Assam government on their arrival from Kathmandu put them up in a hotel in Delhi and flew them to Guwahati – all free of cost.
It is just three months ago that one made a road trip to Nepal. When one of our vehicles broke down late one evening on a desolate stretch of the highway we found a mechanic in a nearby town who had the vehicle towed to his garage. Over the next two days he managed to get the parts from a town in Bihar and had the vehicle ready on our return. All this was done inexpensively, cheerfully with no communal malice. A stranger in similar circumstances in rural Meghalaya would be unbelievably lucky to get similar help.
Sadly it is the thinking of a few people in Shillong which runs the state. If we are down on most developmental indices we are equally down on our ability to love. Some people have made it a business to stir up communal passions little realising that communal chauvinism is as outdated and abhorrent as male chauvinism or religious fundamentalism. We all live in a world that is not just interconnected but interdependent and God forbid if a similar earthquake were to hit us, would we refuse help from other communities. I don’t think so. In fact it will not be surprising if incoming aid is pilfered and sold by people of one’s own community.
So when we need something we don’t make any communal distinctions, then why when it comes to helping others we put up barriers of race, religion and ethnicity. None of us have has had the luxury of pre choosing the community or the country to be born in and we are not just Indians by accident. The oft ignored fact is that we can still choose to be human or inhuman about the problems of the entire humanity. The examples of large heartedness given a few paragraphs before involve without exception people helping across communities.
Alan Watts in the book “The Wisdom of Insecurity” has the following gem of a thought. He says, “I have always been fascinated by the law of reverse effort. Sometimes I call it the “backwards law”. When you try to stay on the surface of water, you sink; but when you try to sink you float. When you hold your breath you lose it- which immediately calls to mind an ancient and much neglected saying, “Whosoever shall try to save his soul, shall lose it””. Sometimes the best thing we can do for our community is to help people of other communities just as our families are helped when we help others. Even in business it is well known that the most successful businesses are those which are more focussed on providing good service rather than on making maximum profits.
We in this state need to reclaim our souls and our perspective. We have been going about things in a certain way and that doesn’t seem to have helped us much or taken us very far. For too long we have focussed on getting what we perceive to be our due. Can we not make a little effort to give when the need of others is greater than ours? By law of reverse effort perhaps our lives will also become better.
Can we please help Nepal and the Nepalese in this hour of their need.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected]