I am often amazed at the
generally prevalent tendency amongst the upper crust to decry those who are
actually making life comfortable for them. Imagining a life without the
presence of those who serve us and take care of our routine needs at home and office
silently and often efficiently makes me cringe in pain.
Our peons and personal staff in
the office and our servants at home are generally the silent army whose existence
is noticed only when the job they perform is not upto our hallowed
expectations. And then they are shouted at and demeaned, very often to a ridiculous
extent, not exactly commensurate with their failing.
Having lived in Delhi, the apex
city of the country, for a fairly long period, I have suffered being a witness
to the demeaning acts of those in power and also those who roll in wealth even
if of an ill-gotten origin. The chief executive of fairly recent vintage in
railways who almost daily went to the extent of snatching money from the
hapless servants who worked in their home besides heaping many other unmentionable
indignities. Many others in powerful positions also display similar traits of leaving
no opportunity to pull down those very persons who make their lives
comfortable.
Somehow I am unable to appreciate
this widespread national malaise of human beings treating others of their own elk disparagingly.
Perhaps such a breed is not human after
all and are many notches below even though they may be regard themselves otherwise.
Many media reports of politicos,
bureaucrats and even highly paid corporate maltreating (often maltreating is a
mild word) their household servants have emerged in recent times and that makes
me wonder whether it has now become a social issue beyond correction. Perhaps
it is symptomatic of a society evolving through the morass of ill gotten wealth
and rampant abuse of power by those who were meant to emerge as role models. Yet
what frightens is the sheer scale and often social acceptance or mere lack of concern
for such practices.
Such conduct is indeed sign of
a society that is immature and backward in the true sense. That demeaning
others is surely not a sign of greatness is something that we have to realize
from the core of our hearts. Yet who wants to be merely great in a setup where
greatness is almost always equated with the quantum of power or wealth one
wields. Perhaps when we acquired independence, we were a bunch of people uneducated
in the real sense, but were destined for self rule and the chaos and misdemeanors
by those meant to set things right therefore continues unabated.
Amen!
