I was returning after sighting this Sunbird, small, and high up in the tree about 500 meters away, when the news of physical attack on the labourers coming to work in our property reached me!
Seven of them were walking to come covering a distance of six kilometres as the regular bus service was off the road due to the 'hartal'. They have been working on the well which irrigates the property to build its walls and clear the slush that accumulated on the bottom. They are migrant workers, two of them having been working in this part of Kerala for eight years. Three of them had sustained injury on their head and face when the protagonists of the hartal refused them to walk to work. When they disregarded these 'vigilante group' they were attacked physically by stones and their food packets thrown away scattering on the road! There were onlookers who stood silent to this assault on the 'poorest of the poor'!
The mason who heard about this rushed to the spot and took them to the hospital, three of them needing stitching of the lacerated wounds on the face and head.
These workers live and work here in order to sustain their families back at home in one of the north eastern states.
I am utterly confused that this form of merciless violence occurs in 'god's own country', where we presume that people are tolerant, neighbour friendly and accommodative of diversity of opinions.
Let me suggest that the law of justice and fairness is in the rule books; human behaviour does not conform to the law of the land. Even the law enforcing authorities do not take a firm stand on protecting the vulnerable!
It is in this context I revisit the photos of this bird singing high in the sky! Its birdsong was hardly audible from a distance. But for the photo of it singing, I would not have known that the honey sucker was singing. It sings because its nature is to sing!
Let me also comfort myself by believing that it is human nature to do good!
In a divided, violent, selfish and 'majoritarian' culture such as I belong to now, the only counter culture we can create is by 'doing good' even amidst provocation.
There are many provocations! I have experienced this recently and have suffered from it!
I am even more convinced to do good just as Jesus of Nazareth 'went about doing good' which is our calling and the only way of 'loving our neighbour as ourselves'!
From the story of the Good Samaritan, we know that it did cost the Good Samaritan to do good! Doing good is costly sometimes, but it is an offering of gratitude to God, the source of all goodness!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment