India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters. The vague memory I have from my school days is singing the national pledge without giving a thought about its words or what it actually meant. When the boys hit puberty, a most common running joke was about all Indians becoming sisters (not sure if the same joke ran on the girls side). The school got over and we moved on to college, people forgot the national anthem, let alone the pledge. Life hit hard and fast, it was survival of the fittest in the wild. The rosy picture got over and we realized by the time we will complete our education, there are absolutely no jobs available for those anything less than an engineer or a doctor.It was dog vs dog world out there and survival was imperative. Entering corporate world was not a big relief since 3000 of other people were fighting for the same thing. So all in all, surviving in India was a big fight and if all Indians are my brothers and sisters, it was Cain and Abel all over again.
But then again, unemployment is not that big problem in India. Neither is poverty. When Oprah Winfrey visited India, she generated quite a controversy when she commented on big family living in a small space and yet not complaining. Because, here is the thing, Indians adjust, whatever the situation be. One of the reasons why you will bump into an Indian on any place of the planet, they adjust. Again that is also not the point of this post. Me getting distracted for three complete paragraphs is also not the point, I do that more often.
The only problem we have in India and probably the only one worth 'fixing' in its most literal terms, the only point of this entire blog is that Indians don't show respect for each other.
A man walked into a rickshaw, he got in glancing at the screen of his iPhone. He instructed the rickshaw guy about the place he wished to go, it was an expensive locality. A scene like this would be very common to see anywhere in the country, many people would ignore this, many would not think much. But does anyone see that the man never even acknowledged the rickshaw man even as a human being. Maybe the money earned by the passenger and the rickshaw guy has a lot of gap but doesn't mean you do not acknowledge the person as a human. You do not respect the person as a live human being. And then the rickshaw guy drives almost hundreds of these passengers and people complaint why they are so grumpy.
A husband earns a lot doesn't mean he cannot show a little respect to his wife. We all get sweepers and maids in our house, very few treat them as humans. Why can't people treat the domestic help the way they expect them to be treated by their own managers?
Talking about managers, there are countless examples of managers treating their employees like they are slaves. Employees walking to the loo watch a janitor cleaning a clogged toilet and a sign board 'Caution: Wet floor' someone walks past the sign, slips and falls, curses the janitor and walks out. Had he respected the work janitor was doing, life would be much better wouldn't it?
There are countless examples that we see everyday of people not respecting each other. The polite 'Namaskar' that is adorned by the Indian Culture is left to nothing but a meaningless formality while the polite and respective Indian culture is twisted, turned and manipulated for a buffet of judgmental opinions, random people like to throw out there.
I can go on with this list but I don't want to. Because those who will agree with me will anyways don't need this post, and those who disagree with me will not do it respectfully, geddit?
I totally agree with this... infact this was one of the things that came to my mind when I started working here. The social disparity is almost negligible in developed countries. No matter what you do, it's respected as long as it is within the boundaries of law.
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