A couple of years ago, I was an indifferent witness to a couple’s tiff at a restaurant in Vellore in Tamil Nadu. We know of the universal tendency of lovers to fight in public using not-so-polished language. Here they were, accusing each other of insensitivity and other emotional shortcomings which suddenly become obvious during a round of name-calling. This made me wonder if the young couple really understood the meaning and gamut of insensitivity.
Insensitivity is the emotional absence of feelings. In one word, it’s unfeeling and coldness of behaviour shown and extended towards other person/s and things on earth. But wait for it to unfold itself so that you can get a comprehensive picture of insensitivity vis-a-vis sensitivity.
Once the Hindi poet Sumitranandan Pant witnessed a child cry so much he asked his mother what had happened to the child. Why was he crying so badly? His mother told the great poet that the child had seen a truck running a cat over and the disembowelled, gory carcass had made it cry hysterically. Pant got the practical images of two contrasting emotions at the same place. While the child’s grown-up, ‘mature’ mother evinced extreme insensitivity in narrating this so nonchalantly, remaining unmoved by the disturbing spectacle, her child’s crying showed a sensitive heart that moved him to tears, in a deluge of emotions.
Insensitivity is something we all keep showing, without knowing what we are doing. Insensitivity is when we harbour rancour and ill-feeling while parting with someone we once loved and adored. Insensitivity is the retention and preservation of silly ego that precludes us from reaching out to the other person and saying a genuine ‘sorry’ to remove the bad blood.
Behavioural faux pas
Insensitivity is the sudden ruthlessness of a person towards someone whom he/she knew for years. Insensitivity is not waiting for the opportune time to blurt out the things one wants to speak out. Insensitivity is choosing the wrong time to divulge what one thinks or feels (often negatively) about a person or situation. Insensitivity is also when one doesn’t care for another’s feelings and walks over to him or her in a huff. In short, insensitivity is an inveterate behavioural faux pas .
Au contraire , sensitivity is not a quality or trait. It’s the positive outcome of one’s whole persona and contains the minutest details and nuances of inherently accumulated civilised behaviour in public, and even in complete privacy.
In April 2011, yours truly took a lady professor out for lunch in Cape Town, South Africa. She was a hardcore non-vegetarian. Having ordered asparagus soup with bread crumbs for myself, I asked her to order a non-vegetarian dish for herself. “Order anything non-vegetarian, even alligator’s meat [the restaurant indeed served crocodile and alligator meat] if you feel like and don’t consider my vegetarian preferences even in the west,” I told her.
Her reply stayed with me and will remain embossed on the palimpsest of mind till the last day. She said, “Despite being a non-vegetarian, I can’t eat it in your presence because you come to Cape Town once in two years. I can sacrifice my meat for your sake as you visit so rarely. But the most important point is my temporary ethical sensitivity on this count. I know you’ve never touched meat in your entire life and in spite of your vehement insistence, I can read into your eyes that you feel terribly uncomfortable while eating with a non-vegetarian.” Her behavioural reply moved me to tears.
This is what we call sensitivity. Despite meeting the author hardly a couple of times, she could read the discomfiture in his eyes while eating with non-vegetarians.
T.S. Eliot said, “Sensitivity is when you can look into the other person’s eyes and read his mind without waiting for him to utter those words.”
Sensitivity is to evolve with the other person and feel an empathy without words ever interfering in the process. But for that, one needs simultaneous evolution of mind, heart and soul.
Do we have that or ever even expect to have, is the million dollar question.
Ask yourself.
sumitmaclean@hotmail.com
