Let the young ones be let to live

(Please note: I love the human race in general. I do not have favoritism towards one clan or hatred towards another) 

Even before I could get out of my bed today, I decided to spend the entire morning with a cup of hot chai and The Hindu. Wish I had followed this order. Instead I picked up The Hindu first only to spot this very cute little kid.

I love his eyes, could not take my eyes off him. Very sweet kid, but what is he doing in an army camp and what is he doing on the front page of The Hindu. My eyes moved to the next photograph.

This one was intense. It is obvious that the kid was in some deep thoughts. I love his innocence and then as I continued reading I was confused. Should I empathise with this child or shut the paper and say he got what he deserved? After all, there was not an iota of sympathy in me when Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab were hanged to death. I still fail to understand why this nation is making such a hue and cry that Afzal Guru’s family was not given a chance to be with him at the time of his execution. Well, families of the nine people who died in the Parliament attack were not given a chance to see the faces of their loved ones before they could die. Their wives did not know that 13 December 2001 was the last time they were going to see their husbands. Anyway, TV channels and their ways of working; we shall deal with this later. Coming back, there was not an iota of sympathy in me even when this small boy’s father was shot down by the Sri Lankan army. But why shoot down this boy and that too in a very wicked way, exactly like how a butcher chops off a goat’s head. Give the child biscuits and water and also five bullets down his chest.

I gulped down the chai more like a matter of habit. I was quite numb from inside, so it didn't matter if that liquid had the right sugar or it was hot. I sort of broke down, couldn't concentrate much on work and the boy’s face was haunting me, over and over again. He would have grown up to be a sweepingly handsome young man. But the Sri Lankan army thought he would grow up to become a handsome and angry young man capable of revenging his father’s death. Fair enough and that is after all what we see in movies, and it happens in real life and it can happen with this little boy too. I do not doubt that. But he was just twelve years old; just that old enough to be moulded into a good human being.

The army could have put in rehabilitation centre, even somewhere outside of Sri Lanka, if that country did not have one. But instead they choose to kill him. Is this world in dearth of people of who can spread love, who can teach love? We don’t have the courage and the confidence and the willingness to change a small boy, to teach him how to love people, and who can love him enough so that he doesn’t grow up with a sense of revenge. But we have all the people who can celebrate Valentine’s Day with pomp and show. And hey, this Valentine’s, I got several moral science lectures about how V-Day is not just about celebrating the love between a man and a woman and that it is about love in every form of the word. Depressing.

Let us do something about it. We can’t bring back the dead child. But let us bring back the real love. And in the world  we live in today even if we can ensure and teach the little ones around us not to harm another human being (for a starter, and other living creature as things progress), is as good as spreading love.

Michael Jackson is dead, but we can still heal the world, for you and for me and the entire human race.

Om Shanti Shantihi.

So what went wrong after all?

Nisha came over home with a face full of gloom and sadness. Such a sad face that I was forced to ask her if everything was okay at home and office and she replied in almost a mute tone, “all good at home”. So that gave away the reason for her sadness; like in the case of a few of us, it had to be something that happened in office. I thought it was good to stop at that note, since all of us have some or the other office issues on a hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis depending upon the generosity of our bosses (I am presuming that we won’t be having issues only on a yearly basis since we are good at flagging them off from time to time). I tried hard to make her smile by bitching about a few common friends, doing the usual movie and music talk, and then the who’s-breaking-up and who’s-getting-married talk and then in a soft voice, she politely asked me to shut up. That was so not her, and it immediately signalled that something went terribly wrong at her work place. Maybe she lost her job or something. And I exactly knew how to start. “So you got another stinker from your boss”? She didn't respond for a while, which made me think it must have the God of stinkers she got so far. “No he’s quitting”. Now, I didn't know how to respond to that! So I asked her if she wanted to party tonight. And then she curly replied “ didn't you hear, I said he’s quitting and now I am wondering what to do next”.

I didn’t expect this from her. And I didn’t know how to react to that. She had sent me several whatsapp messages cursing her boss, calling him by names that even go beyond the words in any dictionary, and oh, he’s even been the butt of all bitch sessions. I was wondering if she was seriously feeling sad for this boss quitting his job. Funny, how people think. I didn't want to talk more about this and I went back to my blackberry and whatsapp. After half-an-hour of mourning, she opened up and said, “it’s true I disliked him a lot, but I won’t be what I am today without him. He has shouted at me, used harsh words, but yet ensured that there was a lot of learning on that job. I can’t work with anyone else in that office”. Wow! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but the respect I had for Nisha just went up by leaps and bounds. 

It’s wonderful to feel that way about your boss despite having to put up with nonstop battering. But then, how wise is it to quit your job for a boss- I mean quit for a bad boss or quit because a good boss is quitting. It’s a good boss and a good work atmosphere that keeps you going at work, and of course I see quality work to be the bottom line that should keep me glued to work in the first place.  There are people who think otherwise, people who think it is the love for work that makes them going, no matter who the boss is, how people are and the other people related things. Sometimes I think that is how work should be treated. I am not able to decide if the first approach (which is my approach) is correct or the other one is wise. Let’s try and reason it.

Let’s start with the perceived wiser approach first. We decide our careers based on what we want to do. The people around us should not matter in such things. Fair enough an argument. But what about someone for who is sorted about their career and for someone who is working only for the love of their careers, the last thing that can disturb their peace in a workplace is the people around them. If the people around them are painful, I don’t see how it is possible to just ignore them and keep working. At least not when it starts eating into your work itself! That brings us to my approach. If you are in the company of good managers and peers at a work place, there is absolutely no reason why you must not like your place. But if that goes sore to the point of influencing your work and career, then it becomes prerogative to safeguard your career. 

This is exactly what Nisha is going through. She loves her job, and her manager and she loves her job so much because of her manager. If he’s gone, she thinks her current organisation and any other organisation is one and the same. And if that be so, why not explore better options outside. She’s learnt the nuances of her job so finely and maybe it’s time to flaunt them around. 

So finally I told Nisha, that if she thinks she should quit, I endorse that view. She was happy she found some solution, hugged me and we drove back home. The happiness was just short-lived. It was almost midnight and she messaged me on whatsapp saying she’s confused again! Cause of confusion- her boyfriend. “Men may come, but work is work. If you like what you are doing and your organisation is a good place to work in, it doesn’t matter who the manager is”.

It seemed more than logical to accept this view. Nisha was right and so is her boyfriend. But there’s one major difference between the two of them. Money means a lot to Nisha’s boyfriend. But for Nisha, she works only to satisfy her personal ego that takes the shape of a career. She works because she wants to work and not because she has to work. And so do I. Which is why, I think if I were her, I would do exactly the same thing as she has resorted to.

To sum it up, there no right or wrong in any approach. It’s just the perception (a word which another friend of mine uses without any restraint, and he loves it!). Or, it’s just the woman perception and the male perception of approaching a workplace and its people. Let’s rest the case.