Maintaining grace

For the last few weeks, I have been thinking about certain things. Stuff that we tend to do as a society; some good, some not so good. Things that we say without judging its consequences on others — blatant lies, exorbitant showing-off, some know-it-all like comments.

Because of the lockdown, I have nothing better to do than don my thinking cap, and I realised that whenever we are in a crisis or at a downhearted point in our life, we come to show our true faces.

I mean jealousy is a sin that we knowingly or unknowingly encourage within our psyche. If ever we get any accolades, it must only be bestowed upon me or else it's not worth a praise.

It's always me and myself. We take the liberty of imposing our rules and regulations, our principles on people we barely know. Giving everyone a piece of our mind is sort of our deed of the day.

Take for instance, the accomplishment of a certain celebrity when she got published in a certain prestigious magazine. The poor thing, instead of being appreciated, was writing replies and posts to genuinely prove her worth to people who doubted her feat.

When someone from your country gets into a selected list, whatever her craft, whether you may or may not like, s/he deserves some kudos for it. We should have kept these opinions to ourselves, as she was not asking for them; no wonder she nit-picks on aunties like us.

I was thinking about the case of a recently married actress and a director from overseas; the amount of prejudicial wishes the couple got was mind-blowing.

Why was it so important to let them know our opinions? Why was it important for us to pass sermons on someone who, wanted to settle for marital bliss a second time around? Do we really need to pester them with our outrageous opinions?

In times of Covid-19, I get to see another kind of bigheads. If we want to help the needy, let's do it discreetly so that our left hand does not know what our right hand does. Calling in TV crews to do a story on how we are handing out a few sacks of rice grains to the slum dwellers is downright shameful; when that same us also force rickshaw pullers to pay for damages done when they accidentally dent our precious cars.

Posting our entire prayers as Facebook statuses or how much we spent on charity, or how your loved ones, who never went to the slums before, has gone there to provide relief is not necessary. Flaunting it on social media and craving for likes and credits are not savvy, especially when there are other responsibilities and duties left undone.

I was approached by three guards from my vicinity to help them because their employers locked the house and went away without arranging for their monthly payment.

Our guards and service help are our charges, and while preparing relief package for the downtrodden, we must remember to clear such dues; these people have families to feed as well.

Bigheadedness, opinionated, narcissistic, self-absorption are words to best describe our society and us.  We get to see these traits more when we face any calamity.

It's easy to fall from grace but hard to maintain grace. Live and let live, please. The need to let our two-cents' worth or our very trivial handouts known to the world is kind of a display of our pathetic need to brag about and feed our big inflated ego that has grown out of proportion.

In this time and era of social media revolution, everything needs a consolidation that it has been registered and liked, even the trash we say or do.

Think about it.

This week, Star lifestyle has some fine recipes about salad dressings and vinaigrettes. Why not try them out for upcoming iftars and take your mind off things. Stay home and stay safe.

— RBR