Opinion | Columnists
The fear of one another hinders our humanity
I was driving around the other night. Yes I know it's a very specific reference to which night but this general ambiguity brings about a mysterious sense that makes a story that little bit more interesting. Doesn't it?
- By Shail Sunil Vaidya, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:45 December 13, 2008
I was driving around the other night. Yes I know it's a very specific reference to which night but this general ambiguity brings about a mysterious sense that makes a story that little bit more interesting. Doesn't it?
Anyways, drifting back, I came across this man at a bus-stand, seemingly desperate for a lift. I slowed down but then the poison of distrust seeped into my mind. I wondered what if he has a knife, what if he's going to mug me. I didn't have anything but I did have a vehicle. So I became initially apprehensive and many people have told me that I had taken the right decision.
But I still wonder if it was the right thing for me to drive on and thus not acknowledge his gesture.
Yes, this is India, this is Ahmedabad, and that in itself is enough to conventionally conclude that I was in all probability going to get mugged but reading into this it might just imply much more.
What if this one person standing there had that ever little faith in humanity, that little hope in the goodness of people? Could my one little action have just crushed it? Was I right in not offering him a lift when I know I would expect one in a similar situation? I think not. Yet I have apparently done the right thing.
These little actions may not make an earth shaking impact but sometimes it could. It could arise a hope, however little, everything need not be big: small scale can be accepted. We see ourselves growing from little children to grownup adults yet we don't feel the need to begin small scale before it can make an impact.
I may come across as an idealist but I am just an optimist.
Selfish drive
This is what it is about. This is why we don't trust anymore and in our selfish drive for finding goodness we refuse to dole it out, we are no longer the humans we call ourselves but animals with a primary instinct of feeding those dear to us. Even though those we hurt along the way may be dear to someone else. We have not evolved, we have not grown. We have decayed as a society, we need people but now not too many of them.
Man is a social animal but only just. It may not be this macabre, but we don't know how bad it is.
I have just shamelessly questioned whether there was any goodness left in the world, any empathic vibrations left among humankind and yet here I was the hypocrite, in the fear of self with the thought process of a thug, turning a blind eye to a fellow being in need.
Did he lose faith? I hope not. Should I pick up the next hitch-hiker? I know not whether humanity is still alive, really, I fear, for even though I advocated it all this while. I could not put it into practice and I fear I am not the only one....
Shail Sunil Vaidya is an independent writer based in India.
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