By Rev. Lyndan Syiem
Over the past weekend, there has been a perceptible shift in the content of the local news cycle, both in print and electronic media. Earlier, the news was dominated by reports and statistics on COVID 19 infections and deaths, violations of SOPs, government-civil society efforts to control the spread and contain the infected. Now, the focus has increasingly shifted to the economic distress of people under a harsh month-long lockdown. Two headlines from The Shillong Times, 31 May, illustrate this: “Recoveries outnumber fresh cases yet again” is juxtaposed with “Wage earners’ COVID woes on brink of desperation.”
I concede that this lockdown was the last and only option left for a government desperate to reduce the unprecedented spike of infections in May. But we are all now increasingly concerned for daily wage earners, street vendors, taxi drivers, small business owners and the services industry, whose meagre savings have run out and they are reduced to handouts from their relatives, friends and neighbours. Unfortunately, handouts result in the loss of personal dignity, especially for working men, as I’ve personally witnessed in our church’s food distribution program during last year’s lockdown. That is why it is usually the mother who formally received and expressed thanks for our dry rations package.
People in the unorganized sector desperately need help. The government has announced packages, which we hope will be properly implemented. Many social, religious and community organizations are also distributing food and material relief. What else can we the general public do? There is a word that describes attitude, which motivates action: Kindness. Please note that this article is not entitled ‘A Season of Kindness’ but ‘A Season for Kindness.’ Some may say that the difference between ‘of’ and ‘for’ is just semantics. No, it is actually substantive. Because May 2021 has not been a season of kindness but of sorrow and loneliness for families that have lost their loved ones to COVID 19; it has been a season of worry on how to repay creditors the expensive medical bills for those who survived.
May 2021 has not been a season of kindness but of economic distress for everyone without a monthly salary or pension. May has not been a kind season for our frontliners against the pandemic: health workers, the police, magistrates, media persons, traders, delivery persons, bankers, and many more. I have family, friends and church members in all the above professions; they speak of the strain and the worry of infecting their families, of parents with comorbidities. It was so painful to hear that several nurses had contracted COVID 19 and some have passed away. Kindness means listening to our frontliners’ concerns patiently, encouraging them and praying with them. Although May has not been a season of kindness, we can certainly strive towards making June a season for kindness towards the sick and suffering, towards our frontliners, towards the underprivileged, towards strangers in need. Remember, kindness is described in Scripture as the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
In a famous Scripture passage, Matthew 25:35-40, the King of heaven identifies himself with the needy and the suffering: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ … The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
One of the shocking things I’ve discovered is that some families that have temporarily stopped their daily-wage housemaids from coming to work have also stopped their monthly salaries. How are these maids and odd-job men who have served you and your children for years be expected to survive? While these families themselves are assured of salaries at month’s end from the government, despite their lockdown-induced absence from work, yet they refuse to extend the same kindness to their maids. What a shame!
Another is the blatant profiteering of essential items in rural areas. While prices in Shillong are relatively under control, I have first-hand reports of hoarders and grey marketeers exploiting rural folk in the villages. This is so unkind. Especially when farmers’ produce cannot be sold at good prices in Shillong, when vegetables tended during the spring season with fond hopes of good returns in summer are dumped for lack of urban customers. Admittedly the supply chain is disrupted, so that produce grown in the highlands no longer reaches the Southern Ri War regions and vice versa. But that is no reason to exploit.
My maternal grandmother grew up tending cows and growing vegetables to fund her own education. After my grandfather had made her life comfortable, she always taught us her grandchildren to help the poor and needy, and to always be kind to the less privileged. Kindness can either be institutional, organized or individual. Institutional kindness comes in the form of hospitals, charitable clinics, orphanages, and yes, the innovative Oxygen-langar of the Sikh community. To a COVID 19 patient with severe chest congestion, kindness means Oxygen. Institutional kindness also happens in a local church whose identity I need not reveal that has distributed financial aid to all its BPL families; and this will continue if the lockdown extends. The Women’s Fellowship, with its own substantial resources, is now reaching out beyond denomination, religion and community.
Kindness is not just an emotional response to people in need. That kind of kindness often does not last. Kindness needs to be properly organized. Beneficiaries have to be identified, resources collected and properly divided, with the neediest receiving a larger share. We’ve discovered that a small but dedicated team of planners and volunteers can quickly and efficiently begin with a pilot project. In our experience, once you start some good work, the resources will pour in. In a church context, there are many better-endowed families that have social concern, that also have the resources but want certitude that their hard-earned money reaches the truly needy. This is where transparency and accountability come in. Like in all matters concerning money, Organized kindness survives not on emotion but on proper accounting and audit.
But beyond Institutional and Organized kindness, this pandemic has also revealed many examples of Individual kindness. We have heard of an entrepreneur in Police Bazar feeding the destitute, and of some university faculty providing nutritious meals for health workers, and also for unemployed daily-wagers near their campus. My wife and I have experienced acts of individual kindness during the initial days of our COVID hospitalization when friends provided all our immediate needs. Most of our family members were under quarantine; my visits to their homes had rendered them high-risk contacts and they had to wait five days for the RT-PCR test. That was when friends stepped in and provided soup, nutritious food and other essentials. Our two young daughters also tested positive, although with mild symptoms. With family members in isolation, it was our dear landlady who provided them daily meals.
Having experienced so much kindness, I write to advocate this as one of the practical solutions to the present economic distress of the non-salaried class. The government, for all its shortcomings, is trying its best to address the problem. There is also kindness on a large scale institutionally and also organizationally in small groups. What is stopping us from individual acts of kindness when there is so much distress around us? Thankfully, kindness is infectious, kindness is fulfilling. It takes one man or one woman with vision to inspire others to action. Serving others in need is fulfilling because it answers a call deep within us that is ultimately divine. So let’s all work together to make June 2021 a season for kindness.
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