Respect...

I remember watching Nagesh Kukunoor's Bollywood Calling and laughing until my stomach hurt. I remember falling off my chair when Om Puri said, "God Promise..." in that accent so typical of Indians. I remember chuckling when he said, in a rough translation of the South Indian bromide (and I say South Indian only because I don't know that much about North Indian sayings), "You can live without money, but you cannot live without respect..."

The years pass and it stops being funny. The part about respect, I mean. There was a time when I would look up to my elders, and try to prove myself to them. Try to impress them, show them the stuff I'm made of. My teachers. My parents. My elder brother. For most of my existence, I've lived to grow up to be the man that everybody would be proud of. But this kind of pride - what you would get for being the good son or the bright pupil - is worth earning when you are a kid. After the teens, it quickly stops being something you aim for. Instead, all you want is some respect. To be recognized for a man and treated as an equal.

The thing I respect about respect is that it cannot be bought. It cannot be taken. It has to be given. And in that undefinably human way, when given, it is inevitably returned, whether you want to or not. Because when you are respected, the acknowledgement that you are worthy of that respect gives you something even more important: Self-Respect. The biggest compliment you can give a man is not given with words, but with actions that bespeak your repect for him. Assuming he has earned it.

All people have their faults. They make mistakes. They can be narrow minded. They can have poor knowledge, or make poor judgements. Nobody is free of those things. And hence, through a logic I cannot easily put into words, everybody is equal, and deserves to be treated as an equal. I no longer try to be the perfect student or perfect son out of a blind obedience to authority, or devotion to duty. Instead, I just try to do the right thing.

What a wickedly convoluted statement. Do the right thing. A statement that can be interpreted in a hundred different ways by a hundred different people in the same situation. And yet, I think it is not obscure or difficult to understand what I mean by that. By virtue of being human, we have the in-born gifts of intuition and conscience. What two people interpret as right may differ, depending upon their beliefs and backgrounds, but I think a rational person can understand another's reasons, if armed with all the facts. Sometimes, a little evil has to be done to prevent a greater evil, or achieve a greater good (the movie, Kingdom of Heaven immediately springs to mind). Other times, there is no good or evil, just the arbitrary greys we tackle in our daily lives; and yet, you would respect a person who does what he thinks is the right thing, rather than the easy thing. Full circle. Respect, and self-respect, are irrevocably linked with this nebulous notion of what is right. But respect is more tangible, even if it is no more quantifiable than right and wrong.

I have no doubt that I have lost everyone (at least in part) in that last paragraph, though it is crystal clear to me. It may seem melodramatic or overly simplistic to say this, but whenever you feel doubt about some action you are considering, just look inside your heart to know if it is right. Neither rule, nor law, nor duty, nor custom, nor society ought to dictate your actions; they can only guide.

I think I have been stating things that any ordinary person knows. Still, we only have to look around to see that what we know and what we do are far from being the same. I feel like I finally understand many of my own actions and can sleep more soundly at night.

Cheers,
Prashanth.