Why do we have such an insulting attitude towards our fellow beings who happen to be strangers?
Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma
Are we getting too self- possessed? Shall we call it self- centered? Just not able to recognize humanity in strangers? Driving on the road has lessons. Not only our safe driving, but similarly by others on the road can guarantee our safety, even survival. A second late in pulling away or just in time avoiding a collision, that’s not enough. What a cold, unsparingly cruel stare is reserved for you. You simply don’t exist for the other! A bloody insect, a stray animal who suddenly appears on a road mean for human beings.
Such an experience is most common in India. In a country like France, courtesy to strangers is touching, most admirable whether you wait your turn at an elevator or walking on the road. Road rage is a very unfamiliar sight on French roads. In a metro, people are reading books, no mobile phones as in India, seats are offered to young kids by the elderly, never so in Indian public transport.
The more shocking is the glare that flares up at you in strangers when you obstruct their movement even remotely. The traffic on roads is injurious to your mental well- being. Everyone is in a hurry to overtake any vehicle on the roads. Sirens are honked if you delay giving the passage by slowing down your own vehicle. If you succumb to competitive spirit, press the accelerator, well, you will be soon overtaken by not only the speeding guy but also receive audible yet incomprehensible words of choice.
Why do we have such an insulting attitude towards our fellow beings who happen to be strangers? That’s the question. Add to it our cold indifference to clean public places, public property and order to be in a place which belongs to everyone, isn’t our personal possession.
Read: On Being Non-Violent
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Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, India, Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma, born in 1952, has published 15 books of English poetry which include ‘Man with A Horn’, ‘Eyes of Silence’ and ‘There’s No Death’. His book, A Three- Step Journey, is English translation of Zahid’s Urdu poems. ‘Icicles of Time’ is the latest in 2024. Sharma was conferred with ‘Master of Creative Impulse’ at World Poetry Conference in 2019. A former Principal, Government College, Dharamshala, he has been anthologized in several books of poetry, stories and such books of academic interest as 21st Century Critical Thought: A Dialogue with Post-Modern Voices Vol I, (2020), A Handbook of Contemporary Ethics, (2024), Ed by Molly Joseph and JS Anand
