Humanity

~ You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Have you ever really woken up from your deep slumber with a prayer in mind that is it not your last 5 breathes? Has a small girl in the streets selling two-taka bellis and kodoms created smudges in your perception window even if for a while? Where you always composed with the sound of sheer violence? Then you just know the meaning of humanity. Humanity is skin deep. You can feel it, touch it, love it and hate it at the same time. It sparks those bumping fireballs of guilty-conscience and awareness all our ways. It is the cord that binds us universally with no heed for race, colour, language or nationality. When performed the seven stages of life in our little arenas, the drape dangles down and humanity or its dearth strikes us in the face.

It was 15 minutes past 6. Late by an hour and trapped in one of those immoveable jams, it was a very bizarre sight that peeked with the skylight. It was a conventional double-decker bus engulfed with flames of suspended cigar. The wavy-haired driver had two vein-blue lines run across his forehead. Accompanied by a dominating proportion of men burning their sweats in the seats, the driver lured his only counterpart female passenger, standing, with her fists tightly grasped on her backpack. In her early 20s, a typical university student, she kept ogling her crowd with occasional clog of sweat under her eyes. Many a times, when the situation became a little less immobile the bus moved on with its speedometer and many a commuter took the bus and some walked away for the nearest footpath.

The entire one hectic hour of being in a jam, no passenger ever came out offering his seat to the girl. Had the bus authority not noticed it? Did they not have certain reserved sits for the female passengers as per government propaganda? Was there not even a two or three who respect a womanly figure? There have been uncountable colloquiums, seminars, roundtables and announcement about gender equality and zero discrimination. Posters, banners and advertisements are seen in every area and it’s vicinities about granting the character of a woman dignity, pride and freedom. All the men who speak obscene of a woman in the roadside have a house, a family, maybe a mother, a father and a sister who they confront at the end of the day. Can’t the harassed woman in the roadside be his much adored sister?

We also disgrace people who are an inseparable part of our lives. Two-third of the Bangladeshi people is still behind a thickly drawn poverty line. While we churn down delicacies, a million people live the lives of vagabond and sleep with empty and burning bellies. Some of them are not even legitimate citizens and most have had to drop schooling even before completion of Pre School. The little education they have accomplished is used to fulfil their basic work necessities. They do the toughest labour, build the sky-high buildings, work on machineries and at the end there is no difference in their lives. We become rich. We drive Mercedes-Benz.

Drops of good make human beings and one drop of humanity can write its own cliché of change. Everybody wants to be a part of a change, a staggering one. But change starts right at the moment when we come out of the narrow confines and deliver to humanity with passion and zest. At the end of the day we can truly mark our existence in the smiles, the happiness and the betterment of the people.