Do not pre-judge

By N.K.A. Ballal, Retd. Sr. Vice-President, ITDC

Lockdown with just 4-hour notice: Was it right or wrong? Many opinions. Only time will tell whether it was right or wrong. Why pre-judge our Prime Minister so early ? Why does he not name China? Why does he not wish Dalai Lama on his birthday? As a Prime Minister, he has to take lot of things into consideration before he utters a single word. Let us not pre-judge Mr. Modi. No country including China can afford a loss of face to their domestic constituents. War is not an option to any country and at the same time peace with honour is what every one wants. To this end, silence is sometimes golden.

An old man was sitting in a train with his 30- year-old son. The son was sitting opposite to him. It was a fully packed train with people of all ages, working men and women, old and young, some looking tired and lost too. Some were chatting, some were reading and some were lost in their cellphones playing games. Suddenly the 30-year-old son of the old man started to speak out loud with lots of joy: “Dad, look at the hills far away, so interesting and wonderful to look at.” He went on and on describing each detail of the scenery loud.

In the beginning others in the coach found it amusing; this kind of childish behaviour from a grown up. But the continuous chatter started to irritate them to no end. Some began to gossip on this behaviour and started commenting whether this 30- year-old was mad.

It started to rain and a few rain drops fell on the man; he touched them and started to yell with happiness and said: “Dad, look at the rain drops. Don’t they look like diamonds?” After half- an-hour when the passengers in the coach could not tolerate it any more, one of the commuters went up to the old man and asked him: “Why don’t you ask your son to shut up. Control him, he is irritating all others in the coach. Send him to mental asylum if you cannot control him.”

READ ALSO Siddu mimmicks Modi

The old man with a sad smile said: “Sir, my son was born blind. Last week my wife expired and before her death, she donated her eyes to her son. I am just returning from the Hospital and my son of 30 years is seeing this world for the first time. Everything — from the mountain to the trees, to the rain drops — is new to him and so the excitement. For him, this is a re-birth and he is seeing this world like a new-born.”

The whole compartment suddenly fell silent realising how they had pre-judged a person and went on to make a comment on his behaviour without even trying to find out the reason for the same. Is it not true that we take so many things for granted? So many functions of life like hearing, seeing, touching etc., are so precious but we assume that everyone has it. Only when one is deprived of this, one realises the value of the same. When we see someone who does not have his basics, let us be grateful to God, empathise with the situations and do whatever to make him or her comfortable rather than pre-judge them. Let us not jump to conclusions and label them before we know the complete story.

We Indians generally are very inquisitive and nosey about others’ problems. You put on a sling and walk on the road and every one who accosts you will ask the reason for the sling and then give tons of advice too for curing it. One of my relative, a young girl, had come down from the US. She had a hearing disability and had put on a mini-hearing aid, not common in India those days. She got so upset with all people asking her the rate of that hearing aid and details of the piece !