“The most difficult thing to be right now is to be human. It always takes a lot, but these are the times when rather than cribbing about what is happening on the outside, if we concentrate on what we have within us – the core of humanity and work on being just that, that will be all,” a retired insurance employee from Lucknow tells me.
With the death of poets, writers, artists and musicians in 2016, I was lost and tried to make sense of how people managed to see a glimmer of hope. I spoke to people in my neighbourhood and from other cities. And what I came back with were individual takes and responses on what it is that it takes to be human. During my interactions with them I sensed a swell in intangible kinds of New Year resolutions. While earlier people wanted to start running, or exercising a strict control on their buying habits, this year there is a wave of humane resolves. Promises made to the self that are a means to the end of being a better person. A former school teacher tells me why she thinks it is happening in 2017 more than ever before.
“A friend’s son came out of the closet in November. My friend hugged his son and told him that he accepts this decision and his son. It was important for the father-son to know that they value one another and that they are there for each other. Later over a conversation about his son, my friend told me how his son was a bigger and better man than him because he has the courage to accept himself. We both cried a little and drew strength from those tears.”
A retired bank manager tells me about the importance of remembering names and how his only fear is Alzhimer’s. “The only success that matters in life is knowing that you’ve been able to make some people smile. It’s a thing of personal joy for me. From the newspaper vendor to the street-hawker to my son’s friends and their dogs and cats, I remember their names. It does not take much from me, but it moves them in ways we don’t even know. I am perpetually scared of getting the disease where people forget things.”
A twenty something musician from Bangalore resolves to make more music and spread the message of love. With the passing away of much-loved artistes in 2016, we saw the music fans bemoaning the death of music to no end. But this fan has something sombre to say. “They were all of the same age group and with their kind of lifestyle or otherwise too, death is inevitable. I made my peace with it and have moved on by looking at the bright side. All the beautiful tributes and lovely articles – they have got to count for something, isn’t it? The musicians, artists are all humans too, and I am still alive to be able to make more music and spread a word of peace.”
People from all walks are taking an initiative to let the sense of humanity and inner wakefulness prevail. Allowing herself to expand horizons and be a better human, a 20- year old gardener from Delhi says, “Gandhi’s quote ‘Be the change that you want to see in the world’ – I take that as my motto for this year. If I don’t like my streets dirty, I will try and keep them clean, if I don’t like TV I won’t watch it, if I think people are not telling my story, I will tell it. And of course to top it all, I will not make stupid famous.”
A lawyer from Raipur thinks that his life is all about making other people’s lives better. “How I live morally, ethically and spiritually, matters. Those are the things that I will pass on to my children. I need to be more reflective about the everyday deeds that I do. The everyday person today needs to feel the strong under-current of humanity. I think to be human is to know that we are not alone in something and that is what I am going to live for this year.”
The New Year is here and it’s never too late to be human.
