INDIFFERENCE: A WORRISOME MALADY

Responding to thoughts, triggered by keenly observed, prevailing scenario of indifference, a malady which is spreading its evil hold shamelessly and conspicuously in our midst; I decided to pen my concerns in a blog post. The question arises: why we're becoming so selfish and ego centric,  as to lose the empathy and balance of a normal healthy life? There’re clear signs of despondency and restlessness, in spite of overwhelming material comforts. Apparently we’ve stepped into a mental state which is permanently in an insecure zone, where trust and care for others have no place.

Our self absorption with ourselves and our families has resulted in the creation of disjointed, neurotic  personalities, with unsound behavioral patterns.

In case of family ties, the interaction between parents and children and amongst siblings is minimal. Everyone seems to be confined to one’s own small world. Social net working only provides mechanical and frivolous information. Children are uncaring and the idea of thanking parents for their struggles to help them succeed is hardly contemplated.

A by product of such an attitude is the growth of sickening indifference towards other human beings and situations, private or public. We are increasingly getting socially detached from our environment. Earning high salaries and being able to afford everything, we damn care for the wealth of social intimacy and practice destructive stoicism when unpleasant incidents beset us, thinking that sharing our problems with others will make us lose our dignity. We try to find comfort in aloofness and wear a persona to the outside world which is entirely hypocritical and snooty. If poked out of our concealments, a landscape of self doubts and misery confronts us nakedly.

Apropos to these observations I’ve tried to ponder over this growing tendency of unconcern and indifference which is gaining strong footholds in all fields of our lives.

All of us need to introspect about the following unpleasant facts:

In our country the adage ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ has no significance as he/she is the one who is your greatest tormentor. His children play cricket and smash your window panes and trespass in your house to retrieve the ball by jumping the boundary wall and your neighbour brazenly pretends ignorance.When confronted with the truth he’d act like a silly fool and say his children don’t listen. Criminal unconcern or what?

A simple example: A neighbor, who is obsessed with washing his car frequently, closes his eyes to the fact that the water collects near your gate. And the same fellow parks his car outside your gate when you are out. On coming back you have to ring his bell repeatedly before he comes out to move it away. What can you do about the utter indifference of such atrocious humans who can never be shamed? You boil inside but refrain from reacting so as not to create a scene. And they continue exploiting you.

If a Good Samaritan is creatively performing some good for the community, not only some narrow minded folks refuse to recognize the contribution and meanly avoid saying a few deserving words of praise but also villainously try to throw a spanner in the works to thwart his efforts. .

Just think of our thieving political class barring a few good ones, furthering blatantly their own interests and develop amnesia about public welfare, for which they are elected. For ensuring their vote banks they hoodwink the burgeoning numbers of the poor and the illiterate through carefully structured shenanigans. What about their moral insensibility?

The lower bureaucracy represents the leeches of our society. Most of them are ruthlessly insidious as public functionaries. Here unfortunately women and men are equal partners in extracting pecuniary benefits from the hapless consumers seeking one service or the other.

Indifference towards the public good is exhibited by the print and visual media also. Yes, they do spread awareness about societal injustices and other causes but more often than not, they indulge in irresponsible journalism to increase sales or pump up viewer ship. The images of violent protests shown repeatedly tend to provoke more violence rather than help to quell it. TV debates have become an arena for aggressive shouts and interruptions and the poor viewer is disgusted with the never ending harangues. Fail to understand why such debates are held. These confuse the already cynical viewers.

The state of affairs in government run hospitals, show the chronic apathy of the medical fraternity. Unless the administrators, doctors and para medics take upon themselves to streamline the system by promoting discipline and accountability, can  anything be achieved. Govt. is spending huge amounts of tax payers’ money and it is tragic if the medical services don’t reach the needy.

As teachers, are we inspiring our students to do their best in whatever field they choose by setting personal examples of impeccable integrity?

As researchers are we aspiring to move towards the frontiers of knowledge by honest hard work?

Are we curious enough to welcome the opportunities for continuous learning process or are we satisfied with the degree certificates and shun updating our knowledge?

Are we interested in imparting useful information and wise counsel to the people who work for us in private capacity or do we consider them mere robots or untouchables?

As engineers, do we painstakingly supervise the construction activity for the use of proper and adequate materials or casually perform our duty and pass the buck in the event of some mishap?

Do we discharge our civic duties as responsible citizens or strut around vainly, inconveniencing others?

Do we follow traffic rules or consider roads our private property and scare other users with our reckless driving?

Do we as traffic policemen attend to our duties faithfully or stand their listlessly, giving the impression that it is below our dignity to manage traffic?

The list of questions, which we can ask ourselves is long but this’ll suffice for the present.

Dear friends,What do you think about the above?

 

Image courtesy, the Internet