light where all is dark

……and nobody cares about right instead of wrong and good instead of evil

and gentleness instead of wrath

and chances are a mistake was made somewhere ……Richard Bach

Just a few days back I had read of this incident that happened in china where a two year old girl lies injured on the road and people walk on all around her without helping. The clip is apparently floating on utube but I just don’t have the heart to watch it. As it is I’m still reeling from images of gaddafi as he is kicked and stomped on by a mob…..try as I might I just cannot get the image off my mind.  A pack of wild dogs would have looked gentler in comparison. I am no defender of gaddafi and he probably met his just deserts but it was the maniacal behavior of the mob which left an indelible impression on me.

It just made me think... whether all our talk of humanity is just that…talk. It’s rather like learning things at school and never using that knowledge later in our lives. It’s all right to talk about kindness but we are increasingly becoming more abrasive in our nature. We like to shut out the harsher realities of life and pretend they don’t exist. It is easier to turn away a person from our doorstep because he might be a fraud rather than spend a minute trying to hear him out. There are stories of break-ins and robberies so that takes care of whatever little trust we had in humanity to begin with. Tomorrow if I were to find an injured man on the road would I stop to help? Or would I convince myself that a). It would land me in trouble b). There will be others who can help him c). it isn’t really expected of me!!!!! Is this our future …a desensitized and dehumanized society where each person looks out solely for himself and shuts out everybody else?

 Sometimes I wonder whether it would be right to call myself part cynic and part idealist or maybe there is a different word altogether to describe people like me!!! I know there is a lot that is wrong with the world at large and our society in general today yet I cannot shake off the belief that things can get better….that there are people out there who still believe in values, who wouldn’t balk at helping an injured person on the road, who would stand up for what is right irrespective of what it got them.

All around me I observe festivities as the city gears up for deepawali….expensive gifts will be exchanged, there will be vulgar ostentatious show of wealth and I doubt if even a thought goes out to the values it is supposed to teach us. The victory of good over evil….the right path instead of the wrong……gentleness instead of wrath, humility instead of arrogance…..light where all is dark.