Quite commonly people find my points of view controversial. Though they tell me, “I kind of see where you’re going with this, but what can I do?” My points of view are necessarily pro-active (or even reactive), but they’re never ever remotely passive. And the one thing I hate about people is their passivity. Or as I like to call it, “Chronic Cowardice”. This attitude of “What can I do?” disgusts me. Maybe, “I tried my best, but failed” is a lot better. But thanks to “culture”, “tradition”, and falsely interpreted “religion”, the person who tries and fails is teased, however he who never tries is considered honourable. Those who live their lives doing nothing at all, and hence have no failures to speak of, are considered respectable. The “chronic coward” is who really rules the world today because the world is ultimately democratic.
We find people in important positions saying, “I agree there is a problem, but what can I do?” It makes one feel disgusted to see the amount of cowardice rampant in society. Many people like to complain. I feel that all the heart-break-based hindi movies and the poor-sufferring-guy style of mythological stories told to kids are part of the reason there is so much romanticism surrounding suffering. People _like_ to pretend they’re in a problem. They love to be in a position of perpetual suffering. I just don’t get it. Why can’t they just get up and live their life? Who’re they pretending for anyway?
Now I’m not talking about the meeky, shy, students. You’ll find that they’re a lot more braver than the egoistic hotshots. Let me explain why…
A common pattern I’ve noticed during my college days, is that of “industry experts”. I see lots of people from the “industry” going to colleges to show off in front of students who’re four years younger than themselves. But this same “expert” will bow down to people in higher positions and suck up to them in hopes of a better ‘pay package’ (another term I hate – why can’t you just call it salary or dough or money). The most easily observable case of chronic cowardice. Only a coward can live with himself in a situation where he’s sucking up to his bosses and boasting in front of kids half his age.
Another such pattern I observed was at the Pune University. The HoD of ISSC while showing off in front of students, never ever fought against the university to protect the students’ interests. Pathetic coward – and this fellow is some bigshot scientist with a lot of awards and crap. Even people in the administration, when I complained, gave me the whole, “what can we do” speech. It’s disgusting to see a 50-year-old scientist needing 21 year old kids to boast in front of, and has no backbone to fight someone his own age. What’s really surprising is that society doesn’t even notice that he’s the real coward. They look at his arrogance towards 21-year-olds and feel it is a respectable thing to do. However a 21-year-old fighting a 50-year-old tyrant is considered dishonourable. However, society would admire this same 21-year-old if he/she were to harass a 10-year-old.
Is this the great moral and philosophical and traditional and ethical Indian culture I’m supposed to be proud of? What happened to the epic stories of five brothers fighting a major army of 100 siblings? What happened to a prince in exile with an army of apes building a bridge of rocks across an ocean to fight an enormous tyrant? It makes one think, doesn’t it? This has nothing to do with westernization. This has everything to do with us. Coca-Cola and Pepsi didn’t make us respect a 50-year-old coward who shows-off in front of 21-year-old, but is too chicken to argue with anyone his own age. It’s all us. It’s a disease that we bred, and encouraged and incubated.
In fact, to protect those of us infected with this disease, and to ensure that our tyrants and feudal lords aren’t revealed to be the cowards they are, we use popular media (controlled by these chronic cowards), to make the next generation ashamed of westernization (where we conveniently define westernization as the act of exposing a coward for what he truly is). We tell youngsters how disrespecting their elders is a bad thing. Do we ever tell them that respecting a coward is the worst thing of all? Do we ever teach them to be not cowards?
Is it not obvious that the younger generation no longer finds this culture appealing? Are they really to blame? Should we really criticise a generation that is ready give up the cowardice that our forefathers called “tradition”? For those of us in our new generation, should we really give a damn what our elders tell us? These same elders who’ve proven themselves to be chronic cowards for decades?
If you really want to be someone, be proactive, show some backbone, do something about the people who’re causing your problems. And if you don’t want to do anything about the problem, stop complaining. If society is to improve, we need to throw out these “romantic sufferrers” from our numbers. These people are ruining our present and our future. They’re the most disgusting of human beings. A a murderer or a theif is much more tolerant than a romantic sufferrer.
Someone who is truly in trouble acts on it. Someone who is brave, opposes that which he finds offensive. The romantic sufferrer only likes to pretend he is in a problem. He just goes on living his life by a routine. He is the perfect specimen for those who claim that life is just a matter of chemical reactions, and there’s no such thing as a “soul” or “god”. Because this person is just that. An organic blob with routine chemical reactions taking place in it. It’s upto us to decide whether we’re organic blobs or human beings.
