Bantu and Babli were siblings, born two years apart. Babli was elder of the two and was now 10 years old, in class 5th. She was one of the intelligent students in the class, sincere and a ranker. One of the normal evenings, when both the siblings fought on simple things and still loved each other, there was a loud shout from Bantu –
Bantu: Mamma, why is it that every year you give me old and used books of Babli? She always gets new books and good marks. You give me old books and see I never get the kind of marks she gets.
Mummy: Concerned about this thought replied with love & warmth. Beta, do you know how are we managing to pay your school fee, books and uniform? Everything is so expensive today. And in any case marks have nothing to do with new or old books. And Babli is after all your own elder sister.
Bantu: But why is that only I have to study from the used books? Just because I’m younger everybody at home expects me only to compromise. You all love Babli more. ‘This is not Fair.’ And he started crying. Then shouted loudly, when I grow up, I’ll also not care for you.
Poor mother. She is aware of the circumstances and how they are managing. She also knows that both the parents love the kids equally. But she doesn’t know how to explain this to the child and convince him? She’s at her wits end and starts crying herself….
Surprisingly, unknown to them, in the house next door a similar drama is being played, but in a different format. Here the Babloo is the younger son, who is very weak and frequently falls sick. Doctors have advised a good diet to build immunity. Sister is Pinki, slightly pampered being the first child of the family, hot tempered and spoilt brat. She hates studying.
Mummy: Babloo, come soon. Your glass of milk is ready. Finish it quickly and finish your homework. You have to stand first in the class this year also.
Babloo: Coming Ma. Let me just finish this chapter. Will be there in 5 minutes.
Mummy: Beta, don’t you worry. I’m there to take care of you. I’ll get the milk at your study table only. Anything for your health and studies. She comes, gives milk to Babloo and plays lovingly with his hair.
A loud voice….
Pinki: I always feel that you love Babloo more. After all he’s your son and I’m your daughter. You give him milk and ask him to study hard. As if I’m your step child. ‘This is not Fair’ Mamma. Today onwards I’ll never touch milk even if you give me. And I’ll not study. Once I grow up, I’ll leave you all and never take care of you.
Mummy, As usual, knowing her equal love for both the children starts crying. She has no way to convince her daughter that she is being fair with her also. They somehow manage to get little milk to ensure that Babloo gets the essential nutrients. She knew her husband worked hard to earn their bread and had little time for family. By the time he returned home after closing his shop, it was quite late. He had no time and strength to speak either with her or the children. She was suffering alone and keeping everything to herself for the sake of entire family. In any case more she tried to reason with Pinki more adamant she became.
She keeps thinking and believing that as the daughter grows up and becomes more mature she will understand. Little did she know that the feeling of ‘unfair’ treatment in the mind of her daughter was becoming stronger by the day. Not only had she felt that the parents loved Babloo more, but also that this was because he was their son. In her heart she was convinced that in this society girls were discriminated against not only in their childhood but also after marriage. After all, her father didn’t have any time for them or their mother also. He was always busy in his shop & his shopkeeper friends. ‘This was not Fair’.
Unknown to all, Pinki was making a silent resolve now. One, once she grew up she’ll never care for her parents and brother. Two, she will ensure that her husband came home from work on time and gave her adequate time.
Consequences of these two resolves can be well imagined.
Why I narrated these two imaginary incidents is not because we observe them around us all the time, but because of the phrase ‘This is not Fair’.
This phrase has far bigger impact on us as human beings than what we may try to acknowledge. Right from the childhood we are taught about the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’. To encourage children to make right efforts we start linking the outcome with our efforts and actions. So we tell them that if you study hard you will get good marks. If you do good deeds, you will get good rewards in future. See, your friend studied for 6 hours a day & he got such good marks, whereas you studied only for 3 hours a day. There is always a link between the input and output. You work hard and become a doctor, engineer, chartered accountant etc and you’ll have a great life. Slowly, a mind-set starts developing. One that says equal efforts get equal rewards and if everybody works equally they are entitled to same outcome. Two, a sense of equality and fair play starts building. Like in the above two examples children expect to be treated equally by parents. Finer difference that they are equally loved and important but still have their unique requirements that need to be met gets obscured. Eventually everybody starts developing his own definition of what is ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ largely based on the perceived outcome. So long as the events around that person meet his own definition of fairness it is good, but the moment it is to the contrary it creates disturbance in mind. If it sustains for a longer period it creates bitterness, sometimes so strong that it lasts a lifetime.
To take the first example, Bantu from his perspective is right that always got used books and toys in childhood. But from the perspective of parents, if the books are same and well maintained why spend more money. Elder sister, Babli, of course strongly feels that not only she has the first right on everything being the elder of the two, she studies hard whereas her brother had no interest in studies.
So, ‘This is not Fair’ is not as simple as it sounds. It presupposes that every action will have equivalent outcome. Alas! Life is anything but mathematics. So it may so happen that a student studies six hours a day gets average marks in the exams whereas another student who studies only two hours a day tops the class. These are very simple examples that are directly linked to immediate rewards. Real life is far more complex than this. But the thought of fair treatment and fair rewards is so deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that people of all ages and maturity level get impacted by this.
I’ll try to explain it by a very recent event. A senior officer, senior most in fact, was moved out suddenly and replaced by someone else by the government of India. The officer who was removed was the senior most by definition of experience and in his worldview was the rightful occupant of the chair. Removal was obviously not ‘fair’ and led to resentment and open bitterness. Looking at it from the perspective of government of India, there was no reason for this bitterness. After all, at certain key positions apart from seniority there are other things also that matter, like competence, innovation and imagination and above all chemistry with the political executive. What I’m trying to hint at is that even at the most mature strata of the society the feeling of ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ outcomes is very strong.
Now this is an example where the outcome was ostensibly decided by the human beings. What about the events where the outcome is not decided overtly by us mortals. I’ll once again give an example which may have resemblance with a recent incident. There was a war going on in which three young officers were fighting. They were friends and batch mates. The brightest of the three joined Special Forces and the other two were fighting in different regiments. Now in this war the brightest fought toughest battles and achieved martyrdom. Second brightest also fought hard but was a battle casualty and lost his leg. Third one survived but though he participated in the war he didn’t see the most intense action. Eventually, he grew in the services and one day rose to become the Chief of Army Staff. So here we see the best person losing his life, second best spending a life time without a limb and the worst reaching the pinnacle of his career. Does it sound ‘Fair’?
Life in reality is rarely ‘fair’ from the perspective that we see it from. Most of the time it is ‘fair’ from one person’s perspective and ‘unfair’ from someone else. Sometime, it is ‘unfair’ from the perspective of almost all. But rarely is it ‘fair’ in the view of all. Annual appraisal time in the corporate world or results day in the student days can provide a very amusing example of the same. A student gets his report card and sees he has got 90% marks. He feels very happy and feels that the results are ‘fair’. But the moment, he hears that his friend had got 95% marks the feeling of ‘fairness’ vanishes and he becomes sad. Annual appraisal times are the same in incorporate world. Our reaction about the fair treatment can change dramatically the moment we hear about the appraisals of others. Our 8% increment can become too much if others have got 5% and can become too little if others have got 10%. What is sort of emerging is that the definition of ‘fairplay’ is quite nebulous and keeps changing with individuals, time, situation and comparison with others.
Whatever I’m writing here is nothing esoteric or known only to me. We all live our lives and are aware of all such things. But why I decided to write about it because I see many people feeling very bitter with the events around them and crying hoarse that life has not been ‘Fair’ to them. Whether it is question of exam results, promotions, annual ratings, ailments, personal problems, bereavements etc. most of the time we seem to have just one response – ‘this is not fair’. This issue here is not whether it has been fair or unfair. Issue is our expectations, that we expect everything happening around us to be fair, that also as per our definition. This is almost an impossible expectation – if it was to come true nothing adverse will ever happen to anyone of us. This causes immense distress to our emotions. Sometimes the impact is so significant that not only it creates a permanent scar in our psyche, but also results in it getting reflected in our actions. Often actions emanating from such emotions are destructive in nature. Therefore it is important to dwell on this issue, think of about it and set the expectations right. Once this happens, we will become better equipped to handle ‘unfair’ outcomes and will be happier for a longer period than what we are doing now.
Does it mean that ‘fairness’ is some mirage and we as human beings should not strive for ‘fair play’ in life? If everybody starts completely ignoring the ‘fair play’ world would become a very difficult place to live. So what do we do? Aspire for ‘fair play’ or not?
In My Little Thoughts Of Life, we need to segregate the ‘Fair’ word from ‘action’ and ‘outcome’. Action is significantly in our own control. This is where we must strive for maximum ‘fair play’. Why I’m saying strive for is because as human beings there is no way we can reach the level of 100% fair action. But it is essential we remain aware of this fact, question our every action and test it on the yardstick of ‘fair play’, even if it is as per our own definition. Not only we should do this, but we must explain the decisions and their merits to the people who get impacted by them, whether it is Bantu and Pinki in the examples above or the annual results in schools or companies. This may not be able to completely eliminate the feeling of ‘unfair’ treatment from everybody’s mind, but it will substantially reduce its impact. But when it comes to outcome, any such thought about it being ‘fair’ will only result in dissatisfaction. It is important for us to understand that life is not some kind of mathematical model where equal inputs give equal outputs. There are various forces, reasons, stakeholders, contradicting objectives, emotions that decide any outcome. We need to gracious in accepting these outcomes in life, without putting them to test as per our own definition of what is ‘Fair’. An effort to inculcate these things progressively within ourselves will make our lives better and not bitter. A bigger objective may be to prepare others and the younger generation in this so as to reduce the mental agony that many of us undergo.
Focus should always be on ‘Fair action’ rather than ‘Fair outcome’.
(Disclaimer: These thoughts are expressed based on my own observations of day to day life and are not a comment on the spiritual aspects. Like Gita tells us to focus on Karma and that we have no right on the fruits of our efforts. Or for that matter just as doing injustice is wrong, accepting it also equally wrong)