The mother of all evils

Perhaps I am overstating it. Or perhaps this is an understatement. And I dare to say that the mother of all evils in our Indian society is the comparison of oneself with others i.e. with friends, relatives, siblings, neighbors and anybody you can come across. It's best explained with the famous power cut example. They say in the land of never ending power cuts, when the power cut happens, the first thing you should do is to check in the neighbor's house. As long as your neighbor also has the power cut, it is OK and the sweltering, heat, mosquitoes and what not all becomes manageable. (And for the record the electricity people are mean guys. Some time they cut the power only for a full street leaving all the rest of the town blazing in glory. Then this brings out all other kinds of emotionsJ)

And the whole funny thing about this malaise in our Indian society is that there are no boundaries to this comparison thing. You compare about any thing and every thing under the sky. Perhaps it is not funny but stupid. I am sure it's common to hear some of the following statements in your daily life. 

• That neighbor's son is getting more marks in school than you.
• That lady has lot of jewellery and I have nothing.
• That neighbor has new iPhone 4S and owns a SUV.
• My maid servant is more "haraami" than yours.
• My favorite actor/actress/sports person is better than yours (come on guys, grow up).
• My in laws are more sadistic than yours.
• My son/daughter is school first and does not waste time in stupid games (really?)
• What is your rank in the school?( First question to any school going kid you came across)
• Whats your caste? (this could be asked in a number of different indirect ways, this is altogether a different beast and is out of scope of this post)

 

You might argue that it is not an Indian thing but the whole world is like this. Possibly it is true. And perhaps it is not a surprise in a world where your life's progress is measured by how quickly you make money, the ultra cool cell phone you have or the luxuries you lead in your daily life.

And there are also people who argue that this comparison leads you to aspire for better things in life and otherwise you are a dumb a** staying at the same place forever. To some extent its true that this comparison thing (when not overdone and applied in right amount at the right time) might have a little bit of positive effect on education. Also I can say that I really care whether my son is doing well at the school or not and this is usually measured by the comparison based ranking system or a GPA. But when my son grows up, I definitely do not care if he has the highest pay or the most expensive luxury car among his friends and school mates. All I care that he earns well enough for a good living.

Eventually you can see that I myself already accepted that I myself am part of this malaise and compare against the others (of course, I have Indian blood in my veinsJ). But I try to stay away from the comparisons of wealth, luxury items, pay checks etc. This some times might make me a "non progressive dumb a**" or a boring guest in social circles, but this also brings lot of peace to my day to day life. Is this way is the right solution to the mother of all evils? May be not. And do I preach all others to follow the same approach? Never, who in the world cares about my preaching anyways?