Are we doing good enough?
In a series of recent events that are described in this article, my mind asked me this question, “Am I doing good enough to do justice for the rest of the world?” Other people, governments, the better section of the society who are privileged enough to read this article, are we, as a society, doing enough to do justice for those who are not privileged enough to read this article?
I live in one of the smaller cities of India and recently, I had a close discussion with one person described below.
Aged 24, married and has a year old kid. Responsible for the family from the age of 10, when his father passed away. He had to take care of his family including his mother, and has the burden for marrying off five of his sisters. He works multiple jobs, trying to get just enough for his family and to pay off the family debt.
He works hard. As much as he can.
The next day, I had a conversation with an auto driver. I asked him, how is the business? He presented me with facts. Let me present them to you. His auto-rickshaw is rented which costs him 200 INR a day. Fuel costs him 250 INR a day and another 50 INR on average for maintenance. In total, his operating costs for a day is 500 INR.
He told that business is quiescent nowadays. Lesser passengers and prodigious number of auto-rickshaws. He earns around 700–750 INR a day with the brisk business. He talked about times when business was good, few months back. Average earnings a day were around 1100–1200 INR.
But with 750 INR a day of earning, he is left with 250 INR of income. With these 250 INR, he has to take care of his family. I will let you be the judge for deciding whether earning that much is enough for his family. Lastly he said that soon he will start looking for another job.
Now the two cases I talked about above, most of us know about it. People who are below us on the income range, the impecunious and destitute. People who are not privileged enough. I also knew about such people before. But after recent incidents, it stuck me that we forget about them. We know about them when they are in front of us. If someone will ask us to donate for a penurious kid who has to go for surgery, many will donate. Other times, they don’t exist for us. That’s why I wanted to write about it. To contemplate about such common things that we forget about nonchalantly. To ask the question, “Are we doing good enough?”
Every time we eat in a fancy restaurant or order food at home, does any of us realize that there are millions of people out there who will sleep hungry tonight? That they will be content if they are able to get a sip of clean water to drink!
Every night we go to sleep on our comfortable branded mattress, do we ever think about those who do not have a home to sleep? Doesn’t it troubles you to think that a number of our human friends will be sleeping out on the road pavement or in a garbage dump or will be shivering out in the freezing cold?
The answer is that it doesn’t vexate us. Most of us. Like, 99% of us.
Isn’t this troubling?
These questions should trouble us! And it should trouble every one of us who are privileged enough to eat a full meal and sleep on our own mattress.
We cannot do justice to the other half of the society if we are not cognizant of their existence.
We will occasionally forget to switch off the lights while going out. We will forget, because we are not thinking about millions of people who don’t have access to electricity in the homes. We will keep our taps running when we brush our teeth. We will keep doing it because we don’t think of the people who will not have access to clean drinking water.
I will again ask the question, “Are we doing good enough to do justice for the rest of the world?”
No. We are not. Definitely not. Only a few do. But most of us, definitely not.
We are selfish. We are intransigent. We think about ourselves, and our families and to stretch, we think of the well-being of our friends. But, we are not doing good enough for the rest of the world, even though its just in front of us.
Are we thinking that we are not responsible for this? The government should think about this? Are we waiting for someone to come and tell us this?
What are we waiting for?
