Vishal Sharma
As the current year recedes into oblivion and the New Year nears, it’s time for a sober reflection. Every time when we lurch towards an indistinguishable space between two years, such an occasion arises,when before one looks ahead one looks back to consider what’s been done or undone or hasn’t been done. What’s been learnt or unlearnt or hasn’t been learnt. A year in a lifetime is but a blip, many may say. Is it? Well, enough can be transacted in a day or a week, if one is so minded, whose impact can last for all times to come. Or else, years may pass without someone, whose sole reason for existence is to go through the motions, making a mark.
There are two types of things that we do in our lives: one that guarantees our existence or continued existence. Another that validates it. The one guaranteeing our existence involves choices that someone else exercises for us. But we accept them as our own as our existence depends upon them. There is no free will involved. And we know that. Yet we hunker down and carry on and allow ourselves to be completely enslaved by it. There is total capitulation of our moral and physical self, without so much as a murmur.
What are those things? Well, someone setting up a venture that provides him comforts of his life or someone in public or private employment eking out his livelihood. Now he may not be happy doing what he’s doing. But he has no options for he holds no cards. He has to put his foot down and get on with his life. At a cost which is huge for those who care to think because they have bartered away their very existence in exchange for stability and predictability of their lives. Those who have ceased to think don’t engage with these issues.
On the other hand, the things that validate our existence are much more profound and seminal. They force us to think about who we are, why we are here and where are we headed? They make us look for a purpose in everything we do. They make us ponder why man behaves in the way he does; why there is regularity and predictability in the way nature conducts its business? In other words, these things persuade the man to be a perpetual seeker of truth. People who allow themselves to beinfluenced by these things are the ones who break stereotypes, rewrite the established paradigms as they show courage to look beyond the mumpsimus.
Today’s values are also different to the ones handed down to us by those who came before us. Truth as we knew was simple, unvarnished and without any shades. And it was accepted as such. Today your truth is different to mine; you have your truth and I have mine. We will endlessly argue over whose truth is the real truth. But we will never ever agree on one truth. In the end, a Faustian bargain will be struck; you keep your truth as I do mine; your truth is also a truth much as mine is also one, in utter disregard of the fact that there can be only one truth. This is an era of multiple truths and we live in post truth times.
Love, affection, respect, dignity, self-esteem all have changed unrecognisably. Earlier, these emotions had an overlay of pure innocence and honesty, today, some or other consideration has nuanced them. The sacred trust between the patient and doctor is broken; students have no respect for teachers nor do the young for the old. If someone has fallen off on the road, not many will venture forward to carry him to a hospital; if a student needs extra attention, fewer teachers will be willing to spare their time; and if a patient needs an urgent care, nine out of ten times, it will be met with a callous response from the doctor. This speaks to the culture the society is steeped in. We live in the times of apathy and indifference.
We have become implacably impatient. Everybody is in a hurry more than his other fellow being. This impatience is on full view on our roads where we often find ourselves top to toe in tailbacks. Have we forgotten the chaos that would ensue in the past at the windows of the utility departments before which endless queues will be formed? How people would jostle for places in the queues and how as often as not they would come to hard blows? We should thank the digitilization that has ended the menace of long queues in the utility departments, multiplexes, railway stations etc. It has covered up one of our biggest vices.
There is no concept of justice in nature. A lion kills a deer, but the relatives of the deer can’t seek capital punishment for the lion. There is no adjudication of offence amongst animals and no one is hanged for killing a fellow animal. If a hurricane or a tornado destroys an area, killing the inhabitants and damaging their properties, nature is not penalized for having caused untold misery to the affected people. If a lightning strikes a living form, wiping it off completely in the process, it doesn’t pay for this soulless extirpation.
Justice is a human concept, conceived to maintain a social order in our societies. Theoretically, it has to be just, fair and equally applicable to all regardless of their station. But is it so? In practice, there are two kinds of justice; two standards, two yardsticks and multiple ways of appraisement. In the modern times, sadly, we have begun regressing and the construct of justice that we gave ourselves so proudly and preserved so passionately over time is beginning to unravel. Today our system mirrors the system of nature. We live in the times of tiered justice and double standards.
As the old values give way to the new ones and the latter entrench themselves in our moral and social fabric, engendering a new moral and social order; a new way of life in which trust will be replaced by covenant, love by alliance and honesty by expediency will emerge, changing the human life in ways not ever imagined. The expression of love through holding of hands or resting of head on the beloved’s shoulders or meeting the beloved’s dreamy gaze or playing with the beloved’s long dark hair will be supplanted by the short messages on Whatsapp and insta. In this highly digitally disrupted and ever busy world, these new forms of communication may very well serve as our intimate proxies, but they can’t give us the thrill or excitement or satisfaction that we get when we hold our beloved’s hand and sit under a clear blue night sky, gazing at the multitude of stars.
Lastly, a society that believes in multiple truths, tiered justice and more than one definition of honesty is living on a borrowed time. We may all have our own justifications, but deep inside we know that everything can be defined in only one way. Every other version is an opinion or interpretation. Black can only be defined as black just as white as white. Any other attempt is mere obfuscation. It’s time we recognized the frailty in the argument of multiple explanations. As we look in rearview mirror and see year- 2025 gradually retreat, waving at us, we need to take a hard look at how much diminution in our value system has hollowed out our civilizational core. 2026 offers us an opportunity for redemption; to go around looking for our real self and then grab it. But for that we will have to first recognize that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.
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