Monday, December 29, 2008

Work is not worship

Every house needs a maid , sometimes two or three. One to cook , another to wash and other to sweep and clean. My house too has a maid who comes daily to wash utensils and then clean the house. She is very hard working and has absolutely no problem in cleaning the house . And surprise of all, she comes bang on time almost always. I was puzzled by this behaviour and asked my wife how come that none of the maid come on time , she does. To this my wife replied that she is the garbage collector of the building and collects garbage from household before disposing it to municipality trucks. Since everyone knows her job, no one allows her to wash utensils.

It made me think. What makes India a still tragically backward country. One of the prime reasons is that we don't worship work . If we do , it is either studies or dancing or singing or something selective that we presume is good work. Rarely have we time to praise a security guard , a cook or a house maid. For us they are supposed to be doing that because that is menial work, not fit for middle class. A person who takes up a job we don't find up to our standards , becomes a second class person in our eyes. Hence we try to suck maximum work out of them , making them work long hours with very less pay. For us they are condemned to do such kind of work .

If the maid that comes to house does not take the garbage from all houses in the building , our neat and clean looking building will turn into a garbage house in one week . Thanks to all those who work hard, toiling day and night making sure that we remain safe and clean . And most of the people do not even have a time to smile at them . Rather they would scoff at them . Whenever , I go for a walk in compound , people observe that many guards and support personnel raise their hands to greet me. They are surprised. I feel elated at that moment as I feel that I have given respect to their work which they did once for me . I might have just said thanks but it is a big gesture to them .

We have a tendency to look down upon people who are below our status either in caste , religion, wealth or occupation . This is perfectly fine but there is a problem with this . Since we look down on people , we are also looked down by the people who feel they are superior. One perfect example could be your boss who looks to us and say that we are cheap labourers. Another is politicians who feel that people of this country do not deserve any kind of life , security or social well being . They are just vote pigs . You can see a number of such examples here .

There is no way we can improve our country and our well being , if we treat fellow citizens who work in not so dignified professions with contempt. There is no way we can expect security and well being from government when inside we understand that we are exploiting our own country men. There is no safe haven from terrorist who attack the country, as countless number of people who do menial jobs are referred as ordinary people. There is no safety from dacoits bandits and criminals if we cannot sympathize with a blind person who is trying to cross a crowded road.

We have to accept the differences and reward the work and virtues . India's salvation lies only in the fact that she starts giving due recognition to its army personnel, police , housewives, professionals, cooks , maids and gardeners. All are parts of the system but system will break down if one part does not function well.

And it all boils down to us as an individual to be sympathetic to fellow citizens irrespective of the caste , creed, sex , colour and all attributes. If you get acknowledgment that you treated someone well then it is quite probable that someone watching you may change his behaviour too. All things big start small, don't you agree. Thanks

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