Editorial Reflections Music & Art Book Review Humour Women & Society News To Ponder Health And Fitness Poetry Beauty Prev Issue Next Issue

Age Of Intolerance Sunanda Vashisht Sunanda was born in the beautiful valley of Kashmir, India when Kashmir was known for its unparalleled natural beauty and not as a cauldron of fear and terror. She did most of her schooling in Delhi and dabbled with several professions before moving to U.S last year. She is currently pursuing higher studies here. she likes to introduce herself as an explorer because she wants to spend all her time in this world exploring unknown. Writing for her is a cathartic experience. She can't remember when she began writing first but she does know that writing has always helped her to be at peace with herself and with the world around her.

I have always been greatly impressed by the progress human beings have made in fields of Science, Arts, Culture and all other spheres one can think of. Human endeavor and all our achievements have always fascinated me. 20th Century truly has been an age of great achievements. From landing on moon to the cure of once what were considered deadly diseases we have progressed leaps and bounds.

While all this progress amazes me I have also been disturbed by the fact that this age of progress has given way to what I call age of Intolerance. I have seen the level of intolerance increasing steadily in all of us and this according to me has been one of the greatest tragedies of modern times. In the pursuit of being the fastest, strongest and highest we have lost the single most human virtue of Tolerance that sets us aside from other animals we share this planet with.

I was at a busy intersection the other day waiting to take a left turn when the traffic from the other side would clear. Behind me were a bunch of teenagers who apparently were very keen to reach their destination or probably they just wanted to move on fast without knowing where they were going. They had stood there barely for 10 seconds that they started honking at me and I could see that they were getting desperate. I however did not have a choice but to wait for the traffic to clear before I could turn. As soon I took the turn they followed me and sped away crazily probably at the speed of 80 miles an hour on the road where the prescribed speed limit was 40 miles. This incident set me thinking and I wondered that all of us in our lives are speeding away in fast lanes and the most interesting part is that most of us are going fast nowhere. All of us are running to reach the oasis and when we reach there we find that it was nothing but a mirage and we need to go still further in search of an oasis which might yet again turn out to be nothing but a mirage.

Whether it is two kids fighting over a toy, two teenagers wanting to jump red light to reach fast nowhere, a couple wanting to divorce because they cannot give each other one more chance or two nations fighting over a piece of land, I really do not see a difference. It is the same intolerant mindset prevailing at every level. From microcosmic level of a family to the macrocosmic level of nations we all are somehow incapable of giving space to others and share our lives with anyone but us. The strong individualistic trait, which is seen in our generation strongly perhaps, has its seeds sown in all the progress that we have made over the years.

When I was growing up my family had one television and of course in India those days we had only good old Doordarshan to watch. 24-hour programming had not started yet and television dished out programs only for few hours. I still remember my entire family getting together in front of the t.v and all of us enjoying those few shows together. No one complained and we all seemed to be happy in our own world. This was till the invention of Remote control and multiple private channels arriving on the scene. Now no one was satisfied with one television. We all wanted to watch different shows and the person who controlled the remote control controlled our lives. Everyone wanted a television of his own and we didn't want to share anything with anybody. I have to agree that with the coming of numerous channels the programming quality of some shows has definitely gone up but where did it leave us. With shortened attention spans and absolutely no tolerance for each other I guess my family was and is a lot worse off.

I strongly believe that the generation before us was more tolerant because they were raised in joint families. People then were not as well off as we are now. Mostly there would be a head of family supporting the entire family. Kids were taught to share everything from clothes, books, and other goodies they would get from their parents. The times changed and the supply of money increased. More and more people started doing well and the joint family system of course broke with time. In the nuclear families kids now have rooms of their own. They don't need to share clothes or goodies with their siblings because these generally are available in abundant quantity. So the question of sharing does not arise. So, it starts with 'my books', 'my room', 'my pillow', 'my television program', 'my car' and then 'my house', 'my land' and so on and so forth. I am not advocating joint family system and I am sure there must be a lot of people out there who must have suffered in joint families. I understand all that but I still believe that extended families made you a little more tolerant about others because as they say charity begins from home. Only when you learn these virtues at home will you spread them around when you are dealing with strangers.

If we try to analyze all the conflicts that arise at national level or international level we will see that most of them are due to the intolerance of one community against another, one caste against another, one state against another and one country against another. Why are the levels of intolerance so high in our society today? The only probable answer to me seems to be the speed of our lives today. 'Patience' seems to be a bad word. No one wants to wait for the fruit of their labor patiently. We have all become victims of what is known as 'Instant Gratification'. We look for results immediately. This was not the worldview of the generation before us. They had the patience to wait for the right moment and the right time. The emphasis today is on making things happen. Nothing wrong in that. But when we are making things happen at the cost of being intolerant, impatient and complete disregard for others, then the happening things are not worth it. The moral and social fabric of the society is getting fast eroded with this mindset.

Most Classical musicians lament that the cause of decline in classical music is because no one wants to do 'Sadhana' for 15 or 20 years before they can be classified as classical musicians. We all seem to be running after that priceless and rare commodity called 'Time' and yet we are almost always running out of time. In the process we forget basic courtesies for each other and are always impatient. A recent study claimed that the attention span of this generation is fast decreasing because people are almost always looking for fast results. From Instant coffee to Instant pasta, the focus is on achieving everything instantly. No wonder then people are fast getting disenchanted with world around them.

Bhagvad Geeta teaches us to do our duty without expecting any results or rather without waiting for results. Our job is to do right things and not worry about the results because the results are not in our hands anyway. Life is what we make out of it. Let us take time out of our busy schedule to smell flowers or watch the sunset. Let us take time to relax and do a little introspection on where we are going and how do we intend to reach there. Let us be considerate to others and for a change do a good turn without expecting anything in return. Let us live a life of compassion and tolerance once again.

Until we connect again....

View and Post comment on this article