Growing up, closest in proximity to our being is our parents, siblings, grandparents and friends, then our relatives and grandparents, followed by our teachers, doctors, and priests, then so called political and community leaders, the various arms of our police force, the various government officers, and finally society at large. As a child we learnt to respect and cherish them all because we were taught that they were all noble people and deserving of our admiration, respect and our blind commitment.
Blind and stupid most of us are not, and as we grow our love and admiration begins to waver and we ask many questions which are disturbing not only to all these people but to ourselves. How can the people who brought us up be so wrong?
Depending on our experiences the heros fall down one by one and it is rare for us to have any of them that remain standing once we advance through adulthood. All our lives we look for people to inspire us, to draw from the vast pool of goodness that lies dormant in all of us some nobility, innocence and greatness.
Some are fortunate but many are condemned to bitterness and become both cynical and skeptical.
Man is a social creature and the vast majority of us are intimately meshed with others in our society.
At the very centre of our world we see ourselves surrounded by a social structure which is supposed to support and nourish us. Our heros normally come from near this core of our being but as we become disillusioned by our bitter experience we begin to look afar for heros.
The first of the heros to die are most of our teachers. I had the good fortune to have a number of great teachers, they gave me so much, pushing and cajoling and brought out the best in me. However a far greater number of teachers bored and confused me, traumatized me physically and emotionally transferring the frustrations and rage in their personal lives onto the lives of students like me. By the time I finished my schooling and college I was disgusted with many of the so called teachers.
The second set of heros to go down the drain were the priests. A secular education allowed me to learn about several religions and get a grasp of the message they all imparted. I loved prayer time but I grew wary of most of the men of God. They claimed to serve God and humanity but it was difficult to see how these men of greed, arrogance, and anger could bring me closer to God. The saddest part is that they do not do a service but a great disservice in turning particularly young minds away from God.
The third set of heros to evaporate were relatives. Early in life I discovered many politicking, mean, and destructive relatives. I began to question the belief that blood is thicker than water and gradually many of the relatives faded into the background, to be visible only at some occasional function or the other.
The fourth set of heros were the police, the government, organisations and people at large. This group of heros, our countrymen and women, our protectors, people that allow me to live and thrive by supporting and helping us but rarely do so. They often work against the people creating obstacles and mostly harassing innocent people. Though our intimacy with these people is less they so adversely impact our lives that they cause much anguish. These perceived angels rapidly plummet to the bowels of hell for we soon come to see them not as heros but devils.
The fifth set of heros is our leaders in business, society, and our politics. From afar I dreamt and aspired to be like them for they represented power, statesmanship, care and charisma. However up close they often appeared mean, uncaring unscrupulous, and downright bullies. Not only did these so called leaders conduct themselves badly they had infected their followers, their subordinates and most of their associates with the same disease.
The sixth set of heros to often fall were my siblings and worse even my parents. I came to judge them and find them to be less than perfect. I rarely forgive them for mistakes and flaws which I would so easily overlook in others and even ourselves. This is heart wrenching and very painful. The bonds were more severely tested and often failed maybe because all worked together in business.
The seventh set of heros that can be professional associates like doctors, financial advisors, the chartered accountant, lawyers etc.
Many doctors now earn their money not from healing people but from kickbacks by misleading patients to go in for expensive and often unwarranted tests, and prescribing expensive and often unnecessary medicines. Worse they compel people to go in for expensive and unnecessary invasive surgeries which cause much pain and hardship again to collect kickbacks from hospitals. Fortunately I have had the good fortune of being healthy and further to be treated by honourable and good doctors.
Then in business I cam upon several financial advisors, chartered accountants who indulge in entrapment and then negotiate a settlement or compromise.
Majority of the The first were about half of the teachers, as I realised that they were not really interested in our education but merely passing time between managing their sad personal lives filled with rage and aggression which they took out conveniently on the hapless students. Corporal punishment was the rule. Often what they supposedly taught, the matter went from the book of the teacher to the book of the student without going through the heads of either. In this river of indifference merged many noble teachers who loved, cajoled and pushed us to perform to the best of our ability. They encouraged us to learn not merely to gather information but to transform lives.
I grew up believing that we are supported and assisted in our lives by teachers, doctors, political leaders, priests, family members and friends.
One by one the icons began to fall.
The first were about half of the teachers, as I realised that they were not really interested in our education but merely passing time between managing their sad personal lives filled with rage and aggression which they took out conveniently on the hapless students. Corporal punishment was the rule. Often what they supposedly taught, the matter went from the book of the teacher to the book of the student without going through the heads of either. In this river of indifference merged many noble teachers who loved, cajoled and pushed us to perform to the best of our ability. They encouraged us to learn not merely to gather information but to transform lives.
The second set to fall were the priests;
Every time we went for prayers at school itself or to our various places of worship, the various priests and religious leaders practicesed nothing of what they preached to us. At school should we even think of straying of the straight and narrow path they would beat the hell out of us. Unfortunately they planted more hell than heaven in us. They molested small children sexually and physically.
As we finished our education and started working for a living we had to get things done by ourselves the government , its officials and people like policemen went from the realm of heros to the depths of villains;
These folks taught us very quickly that they do not work for the people but they are in fact our masters. We are expected to grovel in front of them for everything and to accept shoddy responses and support whenever it was given. The image of the parental protection and coverage that we expect from our own government was nowhere to be seen.
Parents and relatives;
Depending on what stage you are and how families exist and integrate the greatest circus is at or near home . Everyone grows up with the idea that their parents are perfect. It is easier to accept great weaknesses in strangers and even tolerate it but we cannot accept even the minor shortcomings or transgressions in our parents and relatives.
The circus is even more colourful because Indian families are close knit and interact at rather high levels even in urban spaces. I was lucky to wake up to the weakness in my family very late having spent most of time away from home in boarding schools and at hostels in college.
Doctors;
We grew up with the idea that doctors served humanity very nobly by healing the sick and saving lives. Unfortunately the image has changed very dramatically and doctors are now seen as bloodsucking money hungry people. They prescribe medicines simply because they get a hefty commission from pharmacutical companies. At a drop of the hat they send us for numerous tests at various facilities and laborotaries not so much as to gather data or to rule out problems but to get a 50% kick back on tests done by these labs and centres. Luckily for us our family has been blessed with being associated with good doctors who prescribe medicines with reluctance and rarely ask us to get tests done.
Iconic organisations;
While growing up I marveled at some organisations. I promised myself that when I grew up I wanted to be like some of them and their captains. I started interacting with many of them in business and in various trade bodies and my God! up close many were simply nothing like their publicly projected images. Many behaved cheap, petty and selfish and this trait was seen in that of their organisation and their officers.
As my brother Parvinder once told me on a rather depressing day, "Life is nothing but the death of your heros one by one"
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