Monday, December 13, 2010

Do not make friends.....

'Kripya anjaan logon se dosti naa karen'... 'Do not befriend strangers' blares the PA system on the Delhi metro from time to time. I registered it the first time. When I heard it for the 3rd time, it got me thinking. It does strike as odd. Since I am not supposed to befriend strangers and everyone is a stranger to me at the time of birth, that implies I will be born and die friendless. If everyone was to take this sage advice seriously, the earth would be divided into 6 billion societies constituting 1 person each. I know I may be taking this arguement too far and the intention of the person who had this message written was just to caution people against trusting someone too much. The choice of words, however, is terribly wrong, which brings me to the point of this post.

What drives messages like these? Insecurity. In other words, the concern for security. It could be the concern for someone's personal security or the concern for the security of a country/society. In the last week, I have seen a friend cancel a trip to the North East and have seen another one feeling anxious about being locked in together with 3 unknown people in the 1st AC compartment of a train. I have myself not done lots of things over my life labelling them as 'dangerous' or 'not-safe'. We do that to drinking water all the time. Dont get me wrong. I am not criticizing anything or anyone. Infact, I do understand where the concerns stem from, which is why it is even more important to consider what this leads to.

Today, as we live in a world close to the one George Orwell vividly pictured in his masterpiece 1984, our thoughts governed by the mass media, we live in constant fear. Fear of being looted, fear of being conned, fear of being fooled, fear of being killed, harmed, injured, raped, taken ill. Infact, we keep inventing new fears all the time. While the fears in themselves are understandable because insecurity is the key to survival, the question is where is the line between being insecure for survival and being insecure in general. This question is important for it determines what we do with our lives.

I dont have a big point here. I am just wondering. How many times do we not have new experiences because our insecurity does not let us do so?