Apathy

I was in Vizag last week on work. I had just had a sumptuous lunch, and was standing outside the restaurant with a colleague.

We saw a group of children ambling along the platform, dirty and ragged. There was much commotion among them because the eldest and the tallest among them, a kid of about 6-7, leading an infant monkey by a leash. The leash itself was not looking inviting to be tied up with, made of very coarse material. The neck of the primate was bruised and red from its bondage.

The child was being admired for having such a plaything, by the other younger children. And the child was no exception at getting carried away. He tried to lift up the monkey by its leash. The monkey was choking. So it grabbed the child’s leg, refusing to let go, in mortal fear.

The boy construed this as disobedience, and seemed to be angered. He grabbed a stick, a sort of plywood, and started hitting the monkey on its head. Of all places, its head. The head itself was as small as a cricket ball. To hit it. He was doing it with the sharp edge of the weapon.

The animal started squealing. It was like an appeal for help. I could not hold it longer, and advanced menacingly toward the boy, scolded him for being cruel. He got scared, and tied the leash to a fence and got busy with some other amusement.

The monkey itself was contented to be left alone. Nobody would know when it had been given something to eat.

I was feeling pretty disturbed by this scene. I could not still understand why somebody would injure something so harmless and delicate.

A few minutes later, the whole troupe of the people started begging to people who were coming out of the restaurant. The watchman at the hotel started asking them to go away. They wouldn’t. An argument started between the watchman and a young woman with an infant.

She was dark, very lean, and probably not more than 25 years old. She was starting to shout at the watchman, and he hit her on her face. She never backed off, and the children of the group were raising a din over the whole thing. Other families that engaged in begging somehow managed to take the woman and the children away. The woman did not cry, but was enraged and wounded, and still had the pride not to break down at her destitution.

Now I seemed to understand the cruelty of the child. He was seeing his mother being beaten up, and for what? A notion called Opulence. He was trying in vain to defend her, by shouting. And no good man was there to say a favorable thing in their defense, when even a monkey had seemed to move one.

Why did I not help the woman? Why did I defend the monkey? Is it because I am an animal lover? Is it because animals are more helpless than humans? Is it because I don’t sympathize with humans?

I am not talking about myself. How many of us would try to save a dog that is being stoned for pleasure? Very few. How many of us will try to help a lame beggar who has tripped? Very very few.

We seem to get scared to touch others. Animals seem less disgusting? No, helping a human is more difficult. If I had helped the woman, I would have to answer the society on a whole, which disapproves of begging. So a beggar can be hit, humiliated or killed. Nobody seemingly needs to question. Compassion takes a back seat to the norms laid by God knows whom.

Whereas think about this. I ask the boy not to hit the monkey. He stops. He ignores it. I am satisfied. People think good of me. I go away. Does the hate in the boy go away? It will come back at what will not retaliate.

Misplaced revenge is cruelty.

So there I was, watching the forgotten monkey, till work called me away. I could have taken away the monkey. I did not. I could have bought the boy a chocolate, and told him to be a good boy from now on. I could have intervened when the man was slapping the woman. I did not. Well, nobody did anything.

They walked away, with their loud and vulgar outbursts.

We all walk away with Apathy.