This is what i feel .
There r 2 thought processes .
You have a duty to ur blood , family , whom u call 'apne' .
You owe nothing to an outsider beyond good wishes in ur heart , then dismissal .
80% follow this thought process .
Then there r like Anandi , women in the Gulabi gang , social workers etc who form the other 20% . They generally r victims of abuse themselves . Their thinking broadens beyond family . They relate not to conditioned thoughts of family alone but relate to ABUSE whenever they see it . They empathise with it . Sympathise with it . Decide to help the one suffering it . When actress Nargis suffered from cancer , Sunil Dutt built a cancer ward and helped many poor people afficted with the disease and who could not afford cancer treatment .
Generally these 20 % r those who have been through it themselves and hence the evolved mind .
Then there r those who go through it but yet prefer the worldly way as they don't have the courage , time or energy to do the right thing . They empathise in their heart but look the other way .
Now comes a point in every one's life where one has to go beyond the apne paraye distinction and just be true to the one quality in u that makes u different than other animal species ...humanity .
If a woman is raped before ur eyes .
If a child is murdered before ur eyes .
If a particular person is demanded in return of the safety of a group .
If terrorists threaten to kill an entire community in exchange for some nuclear energy secrets .
A very dificult choice is placed before a human being .
There r those like Anandi who say , do whatever u want to me u jerk , ur not gonna get a yes from me .
There r those like Sumitra who say , let my family live , to hell with that outsider , i owe her NOTHING on a societal basis , but i owe it to my family to protect them .
This is often hailed as common sense . That is often criticised as mahaanta .
What Sumitra did was not wrong .
But
it was one of those things that you CAN do , which is fully within ur rights , and yet haunts u for LIFE .
Like a woman married to a tycoon for 3 years . Sure , she is his legal wife and can walk away with half of his hard earned billions with that legality but honestly does she deserve that kind of money ? What has she done to deserve it ? She stayed with him only for 3 years !
Sumitra was not wrong in deciding that her family deserved to live and to hell with that abused woman , she can go back to the abuser husband for all she cared or die .
But
Things would never be same for her or the other members of the family if
Ratan Singh had taken Ganga , left them , and later burnt her alive
killed Mannu in a bout of extreme alcoholism
The conscience is a sure shot killer . Just like those who have fought in the war and seen the senseless cruelty can never be the same again
those who r in human crisis situations r never the same again .
The moment Ratan Singh took all of them hostage their life changed . It became a human crisis situation . Sure u can save urself by trying to keep ur head over water by standing on someone's shoulders and in that process drowning the other and sure this is survival but that survival will be ur living death .
As i see it , what Sumitra did can safely be described as a picket fence . She can never be called wrong . But she can never be called right either .
Edited by koolsadhu1000 - 12 years ago
