YOUR PIZZA OR YOUR LIFE

VALUE OF LIFE AND PIZZZAS

I have noticed on many occasions some of my relatives touching a book with their feet accidently and then proceeding to perform a small ceremony as a means to ‘apologise’ to the book. They touch the book to their eyes in reverence usually reserved for godmen/women!

VALUE OF LIFE AND PIZZZAS

‘Books are like Saraswathi’ they say ‘ and touching a book with your feet is like desecrating the Goddess’.

When brokers enter the Mumbai stock Exchange every morning they stoop low , touch the steps of the BSE and say a silent prayer---this stooping being the only physical exercise they might indulge in! The Stock Exchange I am told , is Goddess Lakshmi and by paying obeisance to the steps of the BSE they are honoring the goddess whose blessings are mandatory if you are to make a killing on the bourses .

The peepul tree is sacred,the cobra is sacred too ,hence the injunction never to kill this snake, the lotus is sacred, so is the tulsi plant, and who can ignore the ganges water that most sacred of river waters and a few mountains that are also sacred. Some movie stars are sacred and even temples are dedicated to them.

The list of things sacred is long. I once casually asked my trainees in a Bangalore workshop to list things that are considered sacred by themselves and their families. The combined list included over 120 items! But here is a catch that I will discuss shortly.

The devastating events in Japan have taught us many a lesson if we are ready to learn from these events. But to my surprise what has happened in the seas off Mumbai has convinced me that far from learning any lessons from Japan some of us have done precisely the opposite thereby exposing the people of Mumbai to a possible disaster that might make the tsunami in Japan look like a minor mishap.

I refer to this small news item –this item got lesser publicity than the breakup between Bipasha Basu and John Abraham—as is to be expected in a city and nation besotted with film actors, models and cricketers[and John is a combination of actor and model and counts M.S. Dhoni as his closest buddy] .

The item stated that the government had placed in the seas off the Mumbai coast tsunami warning systems in the form of floats that ran on solar cells and would send signals via satellite to the authorities the second an earthquake was developing in the waters . One might congratulate our government at this rare display of foresight and concern for lives. But the news item left me shattered. SOME FISHER MEN HAD STOLEN THE SOLAR CELLS NO DOUBT TO DISPOSE THEM OFF IN CHOR BAZAAR.

If and when a tusnami destroys Mumbai please do not blame any god, or curse of nature –just blame it all on the single characterestic of Indian ethos—we treat everything as sacred except life.This is the lesson I confirmed from the responses I received at the Bangalore workshop.

You might argue that one cannot generalize on the basis of what a handful of illiterate fishermen did or trainees said at a seminar. .But wait a minute. Instances of total disregard for life are far too many to be recounted here—adulterated baby food, country liquor made of dangerous chemicals, lack of safety in tall buildings, crazy driving on our streets, majority of drivers not having a driving license, doctors without medical qualifications, and last but not the least—pilots with fake licenses .The irony is that these fake pilots do not consider even their own lives as sacred—truly the reverence for sacrifice in action high in the skies!

I have a hypothesis for this bizarre sense of priorities that makes us undervalue life.

The value of life is determined by several factors of which two are very important—economics and theology.

Economics tells us that demand and supply forces determine the value that society places on any good or service. Our population being humungous and the demand for manpower in the economy being so small it is but natural that life has little value. I know this sounds ‘ inhuman’ but this accounts for part of our meager emphasis on the value of life. That apart Hindu belief systems involve a strong conviction that we will be born again and again. Hence the statement common elsewhere in the world that ‘ we have just one life’ draws guffaws in India .The abundance of lives that Hindus are assured leads to undervaluing the current life that we have. There is always another chance!

All this leads us to another question—when are we going to lay utmost emphasis on disaster management?Will you have the courage to buy and stay in an apartment on the 115th floor of the world’s tallest residential building coming up in Mumbai with 118 floors ?As someone said, in India the Domino’s pizza delivery boy arrives in 25 minutes but the ambulance….

K.R.RAVI

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