Salman Khan's clothes' line of the 'being human' brand is very popular with a wide range of age groups. Young school and college students sport the brand and so too middle aged persons. But it is just for style, not to support the spirit of it, as is obvious by the attitude of such persons.
I am a teacher and to be insulted by a stranger on Teachers' Day and that too on a public footpath, was a vicious blow to me. Having been a teacher for the last twenty two years seems to have been so fruitless, because I could not even bring about a single change for the better, in spite of consistent efforts.
The footpath near my school is used like a road by two wheelers. They ride over it and they park on it. So many school children use this footpath, but the two wheeler riders are immune from any type of policing. On this particular day, the footpath was teeming with students returning home and yet motorbikers were riding at high speed on the footpath because there was a traffic jam on the road. I stopped a biker and told him that he should walk his bike and ride when he is back on the road. After arguing for two minutes, he realized that I was adamant and that I would not let him pass, so he complied. Then another biker, sporting a 'being human' tee shirt, came onto the footpath and without provocation began abusing me, with his mouth full of red paan spit. He parked on the footpath and kept shouting against my stand with the previous biker. I told him that he too was wrong to have ridden his bike onto the pavement, at which his tirade became louder and he started using foul language. When I protested that he was the wrong doer and didn't deserve to wear a tee shirt saying 'being human', as he was being inhuman by abusing an older lady besides, he shouted that I should keep my teaching for the school students inside the school premises only. When I admonished him that hadn't he been taught manners and civic rules at school, during his youth, he mocked me by retaliating that he had been a student of the same school where I was teaching at present. That was the last straw for me and I just felt so heart broken and could not argue with him anymore.
Just then a traffic policeman was walking on the road, and I approached him, hoping that he would intervene or at least tell off the rude 'being inhuman' person. But the policeman walked off faster than me and I realized that he wanted to avoid confrontation. I followed him till the end of the road where the main traffic signals at a cross road of six main roads stalled him. I requested him as to why he had walked off from the scene of argument, and he said that 'yeh elaakah unkah hai, hum kuch naheeh kar sakteh'. So I asked to know his name, but he covered his nameplate with his hand and hurried off into the traffic.
This proves that the police are quite incompetent to control thugs in this particular area, mostly because they are backed by political honchos of the same community. Even the E ward municipal office has not bothered to fix bollards along the footpath, to keep two wheelers off the pavement. In fact the edges of the pavement have slopes for easy access to two wheelers to be able to speed onto the footpath. Repeated reminders have not rendered effective action from the E ward office. But they have taken extra precautions to fix a double row of bollards outside the gate of their own office premises, which is just across the corner.
Civics, as a subject, has been side lined in schools. I think that it should be compulsory upto the tenth and it should involve students into the practical application of its tenets. That and that only will lead to a better India. Students should be made aware of how the machinery of a ward office works, so that they can use it to better the situation in their own residential areas. They must be taught the power that can be wielded by the BMC if they wish to implement it or are prodded into doing so.
I am a teacher and to be insulted by a stranger on Teachers' Day and that too on a public footpath, was a vicious blow to me. Having been a teacher for the last twenty two years seems to have been so fruitless, because I could not even bring about a single change for the better, in spite of consistent efforts.
The footpath near my school is used like a road by two wheelers. They ride over it and they park on it. So many school children use this footpath, but the two wheeler riders are immune from any type of policing. On this particular day, the footpath was teeming with students returning home and yet motorbikers were riding at high speed on the footpath because there was a traffic jam on the road. I stopped a biker and told him that he should walk his bike and ride when he is back on the road. After arguing for two minutes, he realized that I was adamant and that I would not let him pass, so he complied. Then another biker, sporting a 'being human' tee shirt, came onto the footpath and without provocation began abusing me, with his mouth full of red paan spit. He parked on the footpath and kept shouting against my stand with the previous biker. I told him that he too was wrong to have ridden his bike onto the pavement, at which his tirade became louder and he started using foul language. When I protested that he was the wrong doer and didn't deserve to wear a tee shirt saying 'being human', as he was being inhuman by abusing an older lady besides, he shouted that I should keep my teaching for the school students inside the school premises only. When I admonished him that hadn't he been taught manners and civic rules at school, during his youth, he mocked me by retaliating that he had been a student of the same school where I was teaching at present. That was the last straw for me and I just felt so heart broken and could not argue with him anymore.
Just then a traffic policeman was walking on the road, and I approached him, hoping that he would intervene or at least tell off the rude 'being inhuman' person. But the policeman walked off faster than me and I realized that he wanted to avoid confrontation. I followed him till the end of the road where the main traffic signals at a cross road of six main roads stalled him. I requested him as to why he had walked off from the scene of argument, and he said that 'yeh elaakah unkah hai, hum kuch naheeh kar sakteh'. So I asked to know his name, but he covered his nameplate with his hand and hurried off into the traffic.
This proves that the police are quite incompetent to control thugs in this particular area, mostly because they are backed by political honchos of the same community. Even the E ward municipal office has not bothered to fix bollards along the footpath, to keep two wheelers off the pavement. In fact the edges of the pavement have slopes for easy access to two wheelers to be able to speed onto the footpath. Repeated reminders have not rendered effective action from the E ward office. But they have taken extra precautions to fix a double row of bollards outside the gate of their own office premises, which is just across the corner.
Civics, as a subject, has been side lined in schools. I think that it should be compulsory upto the tenth and it should involve students into the practical application of its tenets. That and that only will lead to a better India. Students should be made aware of how the machinery of a ward office works, so that they can use it to better the situation in their own residential areas. They must be taught the power that can be wielded by the BMC if they wish to implement it or are prodded into doing so.
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