Column

Last month, Mumbai was celebrating the ‘Joy of Giving Week’, where schoolchildren collected money and other goods which are usually dispensed with, to give away to less privileged children who can’t afford them in life. Such a sweet gesture, all would agree.

Yes, but talking of ‘Joy of Giving Week’, have you ever thought of how we are depriving others of joy and peace each day of the week, every week round the year? All that because somehow, we seem to have become insensitive, almost impervious to the little things we do that might make life difficult for others and which we wouldn’t like others to do to us. Startled, are you? Allow me to explain.

In the mirth surrounding Diwali, we may have forgotten that it is a festival of lights, not sound. Some of us, nevertheless, nonchalantly buy loads of crackers, those that can shake the world with their sound. In doing that, are we concerned about how we are harming people, polluting the environment and indeed scaring innocent animals?

I just read about a clutch of school kids from Thane, who have taken a vow not to buy crackers this year and spend money instead only on diyas and candles? Some have even decided to donate a portion of the money thus saved to kids less privileged.

Really, it is sad that it now takes kids to show us the way, when it ought to be the other way round! Let’s be honest: How many times have you parked your car on the pavement meant for pedestrians? Think this is insignificant? Then think about the number of people who have to step into busy traffic just because your car has blocked a pedestrian path?

Haven’t you endangered his/her life? Most of us must have done this some time or the other, without realising that every car owner is a pedestrian somewhere in the city.

I, as a motorist at Peddar Road, may care a damn for the pavement there, but nearer home at Powai, where I have to use one to walk down to the market, cars parked may expose me to the same danger. They have no business to park their cars here on the pavement, you would say furiously. Sure, but what about yourself? Is itsolely your business to inconvenience others? What say now? Tit for tat?

We Mumbaikars are used to traffic. Stuck in serpentine queues every day, I am often forced to think why we keep honking even while the red signal is still on. Have we become so impatient to imagine that honking would make traffic any smoother? Agreed, it’s irksome to be stuck for minutes on end, but aren’t we causing trouble to others, and indeed to ourselves, by constantly honking away? Do we need a traffic cop or an
anti-honking drive to dissuade us from indulging in trifle insensitivities?

You know, it wouldn’t take much from our side to make the great city a better place to live in. A little thought, a bit of consideration and a tad concern for our fellow inhabitants — that’s all it takes tomakes the perfect potion of happiness.