As I watched the unfolding of nature's fury in Uttarakhand in India with the flooding and the landslides that swept away homes and buried small villages under 9 to 10 feet of earth, I noticed that the incident brought the best and the worst in humans. The stories that were telecast and printed in newspapers showed how humans behave and the contrast was so stark that it left me wondering how and why there are massive differences in human beings that live on this earth.
On the one side we saw the army, volunteers from across the country and donors from across the country helping out and doing everything they could to save 80,000+ people who were stranded in these areas. I saw a photograph of army men who had formed a human bridge so that the stranded people could crawl or walk over them to reach to safety. I saw volunteers from local villages and townships go across to the areas and help people reach safer places. Saw the army helicopters evacuate these 80,000+ people despite some of the worst weather conditions. In fact, there was a copter crash and few of the army men died in this attempt. Saw thousands of people from across India donate generously towards the rescue effort.
As we heard such fantastic stories, we also heard some of the worst stories. A roti (piece of bread) being sold at Indian Rupees (INR) 300 as food stalls tried to make money out of this disaster. Some transporters asked for INR 60,000 to take people to safety. Few politicians toured the areas for photo opportunities (elections are nearing in India). Corruption ran high in the State Machinery as relief material, food and clothing did not reach the people suffering but ended up in the hands of middlemen who sold them.
An adversity brings out the best and the worst in mankind and this incident in Uttarakhand is no exception. I saw similar deeds take place in many countries across the world in the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean. This absolute contrast is what I call diversity. It takes all of us to make this world. If we don't see and experience the worst, we will never appreciate the best. Each one of us is made up of this diversity - the absolutely good (that we call God) and the absolutely unimaginable (that we call the Devil). We don't need to search for God or the Devil - they both reside in us. How much of the Devil we are able to suppress and how much of the God we are able to bring forth decides how we behave in a given situation. That is probably why we see people react differently to a given situation and the difference in behavior could be significant.
Such adversity sometimes crush the human spirit. But, they also bring out the resilience in us. According to life coach Eleanor Chin, writing in "Positive Psychology News," "Character strengths such as creativity, courage, kindness, persistence, optimism, gratitude, humor and spirituality are exactly the personal resources needed in times of adversity to solve problems or just to stay afloat." Maybe, this is the "God" inside each of us that we need to summon as we go through difficult times.
Hi Ravi,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the well articulated content on human behaviour.
Depth of personality is revealed during the challenging times of human life. During tough times, few human beings reveal their holiness and a few reveal their Devil's nature.
I appreciate each one of the human beings, who had gone out of their way to help people, whom they have never met till now and whom they may not meet also.. there is an other side of the story for price hike in Uttarkand. Due to logistics issues, I heard price hike took place at every touch point in the overall supply chain.
Everyone's upbringing and his past experiences play a major role in determining one's behavior at such critical junctures. It was indeed sad to see the aberrations which happened.
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