Friday, February 6, 2009

Courtesy

We had traveled for about 32 hours without much rest. We were tired, impatient and in a foreign country. Now, we were waiting in a queue that stretched too long. We knew that we would miss the connecting flight. It happened just as we were animatedly cursing our travel agent for the pathetic travel arrangements. A man, wife and child at the end of the queue had been called out before the others. My thoughts were rushing back in time.

A year ago we were standing in a queue for our visa interview. We could hear a child crying loudly. The mother was consoling the child in all the way she could. There was a man ahead in the queue who looked frustrated. He was pleading with the officials to let him in into the consulate with a bottle of milk so that the child was pacified. Twice before he had been asked to move at the end of the queue and this was the third time he was being asked to move at the end of the queue as the officials had found some harmless tablets. It was a pity to see the child crying. It was sad to see the officials behaving in this manner. It was even strange to hear that people had not let him move to the front of the queue twice before.

And now I had a feeling of déjà vu. A man, wife and a child were standing at the end of the queue. The child was crying and the parents were trying to console the child. They were not even the citizens of the country. However, the situation was not being handled in the same way as before. The moment he had heard the child cry an official had walked towards them and took them to the front of the queue. People were making way for them as if they were a part of their family. The parents were feeling as they were at home.

We are immensely proud of our culture, tradition and moral values. Given the slightest chance we like to boast about it. Moral policing is a new trend that is emerging. Each one has a view on how others should behave. Yet at a very basic level we fail to apply what our culture, tradition and moral values teach us. In the land of the greatest epics where karma and values were given the greatest priority some thousands of year’s back what has become of us today?

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