FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Sathappan Narayanan
India is a great country with full of people who concerned with fellow Indians well being. Querying & patient hearing of other’s issues and then offering solutions are quite normal, acceptable and welcome! It may sound strange for non Indians but ok with desis. When you drive on highways, for sure you should have come across “lighting and honking signals’ by truck drivers cautioning ‘on coming’ vehicles about police check-ups few meters away! Like wise free and uncalled advises are aplenty in our daily walks of life. Though some time irritating, it is useful and confidence boosting in some critical situations; if we are patient enough to heed such advises and warnings we can save time, money and our health too!
Have you come across below situations?:
“Shall we mix sugar in the coffee?” – by the waiter when you order a coffee in your favorite restaurant!
“Ji, give the basket to me, I will carry for you” – by the sales assistant when you are shopping in a super store!
- These are indications that you joined the elite club of people! The club whose members are likely to get worry-some results from diagnostic labs for tests like, “Fasting Glucose”, “HbA1C”, “Lipid profile”, “TSH”, “CRP”, “PSA” or “RA”! Our waiters can easily identify diabetic patients just by a look and besides cautioning by their asking about yes or no for sugar, they offer solutions too like half sugar or sugar substitute. Still the number of diabetic patients in India are keep on increasing, for, Indians are unwilling to heed such interventions by waiters and exercise lifestyle changes to prevent such diseases. It is only after functioning failure of vital organs like kidney and heart, they will listen – this time to doctors by paying a huge sum for consultation and treatment.
No difference in our responding to current Covid pandemic too .We still venture out for trivial reasons, attending weddings, religious functions with huge gatherings and that too for long hours. We dislike/avoid/refuse wearing masks, hand sanitizing or keeping social distancing, vaccination, steam inhalation, immunity boosting (but bitter tasting) juices, doing regular physical and breathing exercises etc etc. Both state, central governments and voluntary organizations are keep on propagating the dos and don’ts but in vain. We need police monitoring or monetary punishment to wear masks.
Most of us are self-centric and flout rules for selfish motives. Once we get booked, we spend time, energy and money to get the support of influence to safeguard us from any sort of punishments rather than focusing on changing our attitude and life style to avoid committing such self-damaging crimes. When are we going to change?
Need of the hour is change of attitude of every individual Indians towards our country and fellow Indians. Without such self change, which ever PM, CM or Party come to power, they can not effect any big positive changes to our life or to the country.
“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” - John F. Kennedy
