Mindset..

My story has 2 protagonists- Dhruv and Ram. Dhruv is my neighbor’s 3 year old son. Ram is the grandson of my mother’s domestic help.He is as old as Dhruv is. The other day Dhruv and I were standing in the kitchen. I was preparing something for us to eat. At the same time, Ram and his grand-mother walked in. Dhruv moved closer to me. I was surprised because I saw the expression of disgust etched on the young child’s face. Dhruv and Ram were good friends. They used to play a lot together. But on that day however hard I tried, Dhruv just backed away from Ram. He didn’t even want to touch him. What shocked me the most was how could a young child think such things? How did status, caste and colour stand in way of enjoying a beautiful morning playing pranks and various games?

It hurt me in some unknown way. I thought of Ram- the child is so young. And at such a young age he had to encounter discrimination of this form! While Dhruv was playing with me I tried to ask him subtly, “Who asked you not to play with Ram?” He responded, “My mother”. All the pieces fell into place now. I didn’t say anything else to Dhruv, but this incident kept on gnawing my insides all day long.

Now you might be wondering why I wrote this story in here. Am I trying to preach something? The answer is no. I am no preacher. I am just a human trying to bring something to our notice. This discrimination exists everywhere and we practice it knowingly or unknowingly. How many of us have thanked the shop- keeper after purchasing something from the shop? How many of us know the names of our sweeper or our watchman? Barely a few. I have seen a lot of people behaving rudely with poor people. Why? Just because we have a huge wallet full of money, we start considering ourselves super human! We forget that the other person is also a human after all. We are all Dhruv in one way or the other. We forget that even Ram has feelings that will be hurt by our words. We are the youth today, the future of our country tomorrow. Our mindset does matter. So let us try and keep just a small thing in mind- the person standing opposite to you is a human. Don’t weigh him/her in the unbalanced scale of caste, colour or race. The day you start doing this; apart from your world, the world of someone else too would become truly beautiful!!