What not to be?

(Please check out the link before reading further - It is given at the end of the article)

Heart Wrenching.

When I saw the video - it made me sad and left me in agony. The child in the video has touched a chord in me and shall haunt me for quite some time.

My heart goes out for every helpless Soul who is going through this trauma. May God be with such troubled beings? May they be blessed with all the love, grit, renewed vigor and wisdom to the deal with such toxic people? These kind of people need to be condemned from our lives.

I was in tears for the child and I could feel the innocence, fear, dislike for the perpetrator (in this case the tutor) anguish, pain, helplessness and agony of the child, I was moved by the grit of the child who occasionally tried to express his anger and refused to give in.

But still something was bothering me and I was not able to exactly understand, why?

I am not sure if I went through a similar experience during my childhood but some voice inside me was pushing me to remember something. Could it be something to do with my own childhood? Then it hit me and hit me hard.

Soon, I could recall that I had witnessed something similar in my childhood. This was indeed the way some children were taught and as a fellow student I was a mute witness when my fellow students were subjected to this kind of tutors during by private tuition classes. Those experiences left me very scarred as a child and I did everything to avoid that kind of punishment.

The scars are very much there on my psyche and perhaps that’s shaped my life and conduct too. I did not ever wanted to be on the receiving end – this fear perhaps pushed me to do what was expected of me, be it be my teachers, elders and later my managers. While, it is not correct to slot all of them in the same category, but in this context they all appear to me the same – someone who wields enormous power. Power corrupts and absolute power absolutely.

I remember once, my private tuition master hung me upside down and beat me with a stick for not able to recite some multiplication tables when I was in 2nd or 3rd class. I told that to my mom after few days and then I stopped going to that terrorising tuition teacher in my village.

I had seen him beating other students black and blue and yet wondered why my father and grandpa were asking me to go there. This particular tutor was known for his traditional ways of teaching and known for his knowledge pf basic & elementary mathematics. Calling him a teacher would be a sin. He was very notorious for his harsh ways of teaching. He was more like a ‘hakim’ (in Urdu – a low end doctor). I was from the village head's family so was spared perhaps. He was uncivilised and not a qualified teacher (unlike my school teachers who were educated, would speak English and soft spoken and civil).

Now such toxic people (like this tutor in the video) are still around in our lives and in different forms - in the form of your senior colleagues, managers and even customers but their methods and ways have changed and are sophisticated.

If they happen to be your manager or boss (God forbid), you are finished.

They will in a sophisticated way not respond to your emails for days and weeks, or they will selectively respond to only those emails which they want and not even acknowledge other mails, they will pretend as though they have not read – while they foolishly respond to others mails on which you are copied.

Basically, they are act indifferent to you, publicly smile and are courteous but behave normal when it comes to public posturing. They clip your wings and run over you in front of your team and direct reports. A similar and traces of such behaviour and even direct bullying happens by your senior and peers. The corporate world can be very cruel too. It’s more of a corporate jungle.

At least the child in the video is making some noise to express himself. The grownups also express in a different manner. Their responses to such treatment meted out to them by others have become sophisticated too. But, we do squirm through the moment silently or paddle through in a different way.

My personal response today still continues to be the same - do my job better, be positive and avoid such toxic people. If I have to deal with them on a daily basis, be it in office or in social situation, I just stick to the brief and mind my business and avoid any confrontation unless it is a life and death situation. We do not have to fight every battle after all.

Yet, we are lucky to have various laws to protect us but who will protect such helpless children if the perpetrators are known and trusted people? These kind of things also happen at home and in families between loved ones. Only the bullying pattern is different. Let us not forget, pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If we quit, however it lasts for ever. The marks humans leave are too often scars.

Pain is like water. It finds a way to push through any seal. There’s no way to stop it. Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it before you can learn how to swim to the surface. At least, you can proudly say, Yes, I have tried, Yes, I am still trying.

That’s life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCjILVDNktQ