LIFE– precious as itis, one cannotputitina secure box to keep it safe. Those who have tried to keep itthatway, realisemuchtotheirperil,thatitquickly loses its colour, fragrance, charm and character. Like a flower in a mud-filled garden, it needs exposure–to soil, to sunlight, to rains…, to the company of likeminded, lively flowers, not so like-minded buds and thorns and to the majesty oftrees. It also needs its own ground to stand firm and its own sky to think and dream about. Like all things in Nature, life is basically a glide to the end. Some meet their destination in the box. Some reach their destination walking and dancing. Life – precious as it is, so many like to keep it in a secure box. So, on a Sunday evening, when a girl was being stabbed in the most brutal manner, the boxed lives could not find in themselves the basic human instinctto help and could not musterthe courage to prevent somethingterrible.Rather, instincts drove them to run away from the place and then watch from a safer distance.

 

 

This is what boxed lives have reduced human instincts to – save your own skin and watch from a distance. A young man, allegedly in a relationship with the poor victim, stabs her repeatedly, then goes away, returning only to stone her lifeless body –aterrible, terrible crime. Yet on that Sunday evening, it paled in front of the crime of the people around who watched and did nothing to prevent it. If blood cuddles at the heartlessness of the first crime, the second benumbs heart, mind and soul together. “Aap raat ko kaise so paoge ?” (How will you be able to sleep tonight?) Delhi Women’s Commission Chief Swati Maliwal asked allthose‘onlookers.’Will not‘Mea Culpa’ haunt their minds? It should. Not just of those people but of us as well as a society. What are we made of? What are we making our society like? There is something unexplainable about our social values. Instances after instances of crowd not thinking twice before lynching men, burning of cities for reasonsofreligions, God andother suchclose-to-heart things, clashes for pettiest possible reasons and yet no one to save a poor girl! Where does all that macho bravado go in times it is most needed? We, the most intelligent of all species in the world, are also the only ones who can flex our muscles and wage wars for abstract ideas but suffer from frost-bite when our own people seek our resolute action. Crusades: ‘Yeah, Yeah We are absolutely in’; Clearing roadblocks: Silence. Isn’t it strange that the streets of the same city have seen crowds and crowds pelting stones, running riot for rights that seem comparatively inconsequential thanrighttolife?Doindividuals feeltheirown strength only when they are part ofacrowd? But thanks to our huge population we areacrowd, anywhere, everywhere, aren’t we?

 

It would have only taken a couple of strong-willed men to overpower the murderer. But all they did was run away, or simply walk away! People often complain that their wariness is due to the tardiness of ourlaw enforcement and the legal systems. Agreed, despite many steps to make these people-friendly, they still are tardy. So, dowe prefer lawlessness? ‘Ghor Kalyug,’ we cry and explain our predicament. Yes Kalyug, has been describedas the period when men would lose their manliness, the instinct to protect; women their womanhood, the instinct to nurture. But despite the yuga, we still pride ourselves with being civilised, cultured, religious, God-fearing people. How can we give in so easily to our degradation into becoming a perfect species for the ‘Kalyug’? What good will our strong, staunch defences of our culture, our religions, our way of life be, if we cannot live up toamuch simplertask of being humans. As perthe Karmic law, if we keep turning a blind eye to things, the process of evolutionwillturn us blind.Orperhaps, thispresentblindness upon our instinctive eye, is the result of many occasions on which we told our eyes to turn blind.“Hold your nerves,” We have wise-counselled ourselves into inaction, many times.

 

Our nerves now seem jammed due to constant holding.Walkaway, walkaway, we have taught ourlegs. And thatis whatthey keep doing when the need is to hold on to the ground. People build a society which they deserve, says old wisdom.We do not deserve this.We owe it to our ancient civilisation that our civilised behaviour is not a show only fortime being but a well-imbibed habit of life. We owe it to our culture, to be grounded and courageous so we can stand tall, even as individuals. We owe it to our respective religions that we uphold our faith in humanity and are faithful to it. And most importantly, we owe it to ourselves, our growth, our future that we do not mollycoddle our life into a box of safety but explore the world in all its trials and tribulation to find our worthy selves.