Society and You

                                     

   

                              Imagine an overnight journey in a bus between two cities. Let’s say the bus has a capacity of hundred. Everyone boards the bus and settles comfortably in their seats. The temperature of the air condition is perfect, the seats have enough cushion and the quilts are good. As the bus starts, the attendant of the bus plays a movie in the TV set at the front end of the bus. Some people are thrilled about it and watch the movie with eyes wide open, some people are partly occupied in their own worlds and give an occasional glance at the movie to amuse themselves, some people are piqued as the sound is so loud that it doesn’t let them relax or talk something important on phones or concentrate on their official work which they need to make ready for the next morning. But since it’s business as usual in buses they ignore it and continue with their works normally hoping the movie to get over soon. The movie continues and people involve in the movie at different levels. When a comedy scene plays out, some laugh hysterically, some muffle their laughs, some don’t give a damn. After a two and half hour journey the movie finally ends. The people who didn’t want it take a sigh of relief and some more people also feel relieved since it’s about time to sleep. After a brief gap, to the surprise of many the attendant plays another movie. This time it is another gross comedy. Now around twenty people in the bus still crave for the movie and they are all ready to gobble it. Eighty people don’t want the movie. They feel playing movie at this point of time is not appropriate as people have to sleep and go back to their routines the next morning. Twenty of them are seriously frustrated and are seething in anger. Another twenty are confused as they have doubts in their mind that playing a second movie might also be business as usual in buses. Remaining forty don’t bother much as they have their iPods and ear covers to muffle the disturbance. They just look away and pull the quilts over their faces. Everyone feels that majority of the people in the bus do not want the movie but they don’t want to stand up and ask the movie to be stopped. They have their defense mechanisms and tolerance mechanisms. They feel they can just ignore the movie in the comfort of air condition, cushy seats and soft quilts and amuse themselves with their phones and iPods. They feel the movie is for only two and half hours again and they can sleep after that. The movie plays that night with eighty people twisting and squirming in their seats. The impatience and anger of the eighty people does not meet. All of them let their impatience and anger die a slow death in them. The collective good of the people in the bus doesn’t matter to any of them. They are fairly comfortable in the cocoons they built up around them. They just want to get over with it and get back to their lives where they can live on their own terms. 

                                             Isn’t this the current state of our society and so called democracy? There can be many parallels drawn. We all must be concerned at some level about the collective good of the society. But have we ever taken the pain of standing up and speaking against the irrational stuff that’s going on around us? Aren't we hurting our own selves by being silent? Is paying taxes alone enough to show our responsibility for this society? I feel instead of paying taxes in the form of money, if every one could pay a tax of concern  to the society out of the concern we have for ourselves and our families, society would be much better off. If everyone in this world decides to live lives in their own comfort zones, would we be enjoying the same luxuries that we are enjoying now? In a generation of people whose eyes are invariably hooked to the screens of their tablets, ears are plugged by the ear phones and minds are in search of individual comforts, can we ever look at the unpleasantness around us, listen to the cries of the people around us and do something about it? Remember if you ever speak up, like those eighty people in the bus there would be thousands of people who will add their voices and join their hands to drive the bad out of the society.