Stray Thoughts of Dr. Y. V. Rao- 16.
Dr. Yerneni Venkateswara Rao
M.Sc., Ph. D
Retired Principal
GUDIVADA- A.P
yernenivrao@gmail.com
B3-16
Many a
time , it’s a mere gesture, a genuine gesture like a genial smile, an
affectionate hug, a warm handshake , a spontaneous compliment , a sympathetic
look, a caring action , an understanding nod, a helping hand , a concerned
voice, a compassionate attitude, an encouraging pat, a soothing word, a
listening ear or a patient hearing , a
shared joy or a reassuring presence rather than an expensive gift or an ostentatious
show of affection that strikes the right chords in one’s heart and nourishes
and nurtures an enduring bond of love and loyalty.
Such gestures besides building human bonding
that invigorate both the participants in this ennobling exercise much better
than anything else. This is an incredibly inexpensive way of spreading bonhomie
and goodwill in the society. A little kindness and love is all that is needed,
no grand schemes nor huge funds. What is more , each such touching act, albeit
apparently minor or insignificant, besides bringing cheer to a hapless soul is
an easy spiritual staple for one who acts leading to enormously fruitful
consequences. How much/ What a simple touching gesture can accomplish is truly
amazing!
That is why , Prophet Mohammad warned : “Do
not belittle even the smallest act of kindness , even if it is no more than
meeting your neighbour with a smiling and cheerful face. We should not consider
any charity small or not worth doing.
B3-17
A restless soul with a phrase mongering mind
and a pen-wielding hand or a verbophilic tongue and an eloquent mouth can do
wonders , if it is not also ruthless , venal and unscrupulous ; if it is, it
can wreak havoc by unleashing its lashing tongue and uncorking its
word-spitting trap or unshackling its ink- slinging and pen-pushing hand.
B3-18
Charity,
though held in Indian tradition as a supreme virtue, is great upto a point but
beyond that, even if extended out of love or altruism, runs the risk of
breeding the culture of laziness by encouraging dependence and smothering man’s
initiative to get up and get going. If, in addition, it is timely, spontaneous,
judicious and undemonstrative, better still, anonymous, it will be that much
more effective in restoring his dignity as a human being. That charity is the best which enable ones to
get back on one’s feet and get on with life without ever falling into the rut
of dependency or over reliance on others. More importantly, making someone
dependent on us is nothing but depriving him of his freedom and self esteem; in
short, it is robbing him of his individuality which is the greatest sin.
What is true of individuals is true too of
groups, institutions and enterprises. A case in point is the abject dependence
of Indian industry on the regime of the many protective laws and regulations in
force all these years. Over protection and over regulation lead to the same
deleterious consequences as those of excessive charity to individuals, groups
and organizing entities.
Is it any wonder then that in the slowly
emerging ambiance of progressive dismantling of the policies of protection and
loosening up of controls and regulations, protecting as well as binding our
industry till recently, how long the uncaged tiger takes to leap out of its
lazy lair to face up to the fierce challenges of the highly competitive
international markets is still a moot question. Some pessimists even wonder
whether it ever will, abandoning its long accustomed safety of and dependence
on the erstwhile regulatory regime, embrace the new found opportunity to be
independent and self-reliant. It would be amazing if it does any time soon and
disastrous if it doesn’t.
Be that as it may, charity shall cover the
multitude of sins; and so much more effectively , if offered judiciously.
B3-19
Innocence,
spontaneity and inquisitiveness are the three obvious gifts each of us is born
with. But, other gifts equally valuable if not more are sensitivity and freedom
which are often overlooked. These , together with a feeling heart and a
thinking mind in a functioning body, constitute what we might call our
rudimentary self. The heart and mind together constitute a fertile field/ground
for the flowering of a variety of feelings and thoughts , both positive and
negative as well as emotions and ideas both constructive and destructive, that
shape our character and mould our personality. Each child thus comes into this
world with its own set of inherent qualities and innate temperamental pattern
which may be modified to some extent during the course of its interaction with
parents, friends and teachers.
During the course of training, to make us fit
and purposeful members of the family and society into which we are born, these
innate gifts and natural endowments will be evaluated by parents and teachers,
some of them sought to be promoted, others suppressed to a greater or lesser
extent depending on the prevailing value system and cultural mileu or ethos,
and yet others added to supplement a few, complement a few others and supplant
the rest altogether. In other words, the process of growth and socialization of
the young involves ingestion of new values and novel modes of living and
learning as well as acquisition of new survival strategies and emotional skills
and techniques to cope with what they encounter within and outside their home
environment to the extent the enormous potential of the tender mind and its
imaginative and creative capabilities are understood and kept in mind by the
parents and teachers, to that extent, their partnership in shaping children’s
future will be effective and fruitful. This , unfortunately, rarely if ever,
happens in actual practise. Most parents treat the child as ‘tabula rasa’ and proceed to impress on it all their
unfinished agenda, unfulfilled aspirations and shattered dreams in their
misplaced zeal to fashion it after their respective dream personalities. The
pressure to perform in order to meet someone else’s targets is oppressive to
anyone , and more so to a child as it robs it of the joy of learning. Hence,
such parental imposition must be avoided at all costs.
In our endeavour to acquire social graces
and decencies, we imbibe many a refined emotion such as tolerance, kindness,
love , courtesy, concern for others and altruism along with a dose of guileless
hypocrisy and a dash of harmless dishonesty through our study of great minds of
the past and the present and interaction with friends and elders. Thus, the
attempt to fashion us into well adjusted members of our own families and
society demands suppression of certain of our baser instincts and appetities together
with the promotion of positive impulses at every stage. The sound moral and
ethical instruction so important should be a “lamp unto our feet and light unto
our path.”
To be in a position to influence men and
matter and to stand out and be counted among one’s peers is an instinctual need
and to cater to this natural urge , a mixed bag of leadership qualities such as
compassion, understanding, discreteness, sympathy, willingness to compromise
and postponement of gratification to a future date on the one hand, and
diplomacy , wariness, duplicity and a couple of Machiavillian tactics, on the
other are instilled into or voluntarily imbibed by us.
While this gives a glimpse of what happens
during the early learning phase of our assimilation into society, more awaits
us in the wings to complete the process before turning us out as finished
products. As one goes along in life, one is bound to consciously or
unconsciously pick up bits and pieces hither and thither and learn quite a lot
from one’s observation of the world at large, the quality of learning being
determined by one’s character and attitude of mind together with one’s sense of
justice and morality already formed more or less completely.
During the course of social interaction owing
to the play of ever changing pulls and
pressures, preferences and prejudices, clashes and compromises inherent to it ,
we’ll be constrained occasionally to shed some of our beliefs, values , ideas
and ideals and acquire others so that in time we move willy nilly in the
direction of homogeneity and sameness. As a necessary precondition to and an
inevitable concomitant of this ‘uniformization’, so to say our native gifts and
natural endowments , and along with them their finest flowers must have
weathered and continued to weather many squalls and gales and occasional storms
and blizzards. If innocence is the mother of purity, honesty , love and
tenderness and curiosity the source of knowledge, adventure and exploration,
sensitivity is the seed from which sprout understanding, sympathy, compassion
and concern for fellow beings and spontaneity our anchor in the present moment
which prevents us from sliding back into the dead past or fleeing into the as
yet unborn future while freedom is the basis for all these and much else in
life. Some of these must have wilted, and others withered away and all
shrivelled and shrunk to a greater or lesser degree. Just as a throttled
fountain head fails to sustain a springing fountain of fresh water, so too
anyone of these sources fails to deliver the virtues expected of it when it is
impaired or snuffed out altogether.
The assault of the parents and teachers on
the young minds begun early on is thus buttressed and reinforced by further
onslaughts in the form of indoctrination of societal, cultural and religious
values and opinions that often distort and suppress our inborn humaneness
bordering on Godliness as we grow along , winding up and down the labyrinthine
lanes and bylanes life. That some of them are such dangerous falsehoods with disastrous
consequences is evident from the pathetic state of our world as it staggers
recklessly along the path of inevitable destruction. This intensification and
reinforcement of the overlay of all the negative thoughts and emotions covering
our beautiful inner nature takes place so insidiously that we hardly ever
notice it.
No wonder, at the end of such a stultifying
experience , we will barely be able to retain our childhood innocence and
innate humanity. We end up appearing to be what we are not and even forget who
we really are. The world will be too much with us and with it, every passing
fancy of the moment too. The next logical step will be abandonment of the old
belief in the nobility of sacrifice and service, and espousal/embrace of the new religion of praying at the shrine of
greed, lust , desire, possessiveness, expediency and profit. Those that are so
muddled up in their sense of right and wrong can hardly make a distinction
between heroes and villains, and between their “more desirable” and “less
desirable” desires and put them in their proper places for the sake of more
worthwhile values and goals of life such as love, compassion , commitment to
relationships and striving to usher in a just and equitable society—sharing and
caring society which provides basic minimum to all.
Thus, for instance, nowadays, many are lured
by politics that being the done thing or the in thing to do. Some take the
plunge and become full time politicians while others prefer to operate in other
fields, the aim of either being, mostly if not wholly, subversion of the polity
in the first case and institutions and individuals in the second through clever
political manuevres and strategems to sub serve their selfish ends. For both,
the rallying slogan seems to be to get rich quick and to get ahead in life by
climbing over others including their peers on their way to the top and join the
ranks of the rich and the powerful. To
attain these goals, one has to master a few tricks of the trade like gaining
control over others through subtle manipulation of groups and individuals aimed
at robbing their innocence , suppressing their spontaneity and curiosity and
curtailing their freedom to think and initiative to act, and achieve in power
by rousing pent up passions through false promises and/or clandestine
operations , all the while projecting an image of oneself as a crusader of
public/institutional good and commonweal. In the process, these worshippers of
the mammon and merchants/retailers of dreams end up not only degrading themselves
to ever lower levels but also spawning a whole new class of degenerate
creatures in the shape of their survivors and apprentices as well as
influence-peddlers, con men and charlatans.
Though this type of characters appear to
abound in the present day society, instances of contrary nature are wanting nor
are they non-existent altogether. It is however true that they are few and far
between and for that reason , escape popular perception in the normal course.
That perhaps explains the all-pervading sense of distress and despair, and
despondency and haplessness generated by the dwindling values and tumbling
standards, and burgeoning wickedness and ballooning violence we come across
everywhere these days.
A seemingly innocuous phenomenon with far reaching
ramifications that can befall any of us at some stage in our life is that
certain modes of behaviour and patterns of thought came to acquire a vice-like
grip on our life. This not only impedes our evolution as human individuals to
our full stature but also shrivels our personality by inhibiting further growth
and maturation. Once this happens to us, we begin thereafter to think and act
more and more in accordance to those patterns and habits like trained animal or
pre- programmed robots without ever taxing our brains, thereby bidding goodbye
to our minds and hearts, and with no though for our innate gifts if they have at all survived the battering
and bruising , badgering and buffeting they have been subjected to throughout
the course of this long and arduous process. For all practical purposes, we
render ourselves callous , insensitive and inhuman by surrendering our
independence to think and freedom to judge and autonomy to act. Indeed our very
right to be human under the tyranny of the established modes of behaviour ,
thought patterns and beliefs.
Again, exceptions to this type do indeed
exist but they being what they are, add up to a small number thereby failing to
make sufficient impact on public conscience. Their number may be limited but
not insignificant. Age and the hand of time scarcely make any dent on their
bubbling enthusiasm to grow up and grow wise and they ever remain young and
agile in mind and spirit and hence are still young at heart. For them, every
opportunity to learn and grow is an occasion for celebration, and every
challenge an opportunity to be seized by the forelocks.
Dismal though this picture is , it cannot
certainly be the whole truth. Life is larger than any of its aspects however
compelling its contours and character, domineering its demeanor and deportment
and menacing /appalling its mien and manner be
That is the great mystery of life. In spite
of all the badgering and bruising and bludgeoning that they have been exposed
to, the native gifts and the finer sensibilities are resilient enough to bounce
back to their pristine glory whenever they are offered a little hospitality and
boosting as such an input actually is fresh water in the dreary desert of
meanness and mediocrity, hypocrisy and hype, vainness and vulgarity and
cussedness and crudity. There are still souls with their innocence, spontaneity,
inquisitiveness, sensitivity, freedom and all the other natural endowments left
intact. They provide the refuge and sanctuary for all things that make life
beautiful, sublime and worth living. And there are still others who can manage
to regain a little of their lost innocence and a lot of their forgotten
humanity with minimal effort and do the same thing. They gladdened many a heart
by filling them with the sunshine of hope and faith. They certainly constitute
a minuscule minority but they, particularly the former, are the brightest stars
in an other wise dark firmament. And more fundamentally, they are on the side
of life and Mother Nature.
Life and nature are tolerant and indulgent
to us to an extent but they know when enough is enough, ad when they act , they
act decisively to set things in order by restoring the much needed balance .
