Move beyond SELF to fight for a CAUSE…..

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness” – Martin Luther King Jr. **

No matter how true the quote mentioned above by Martin Luther King Jr is, the hard fact of life is, altruism comes at a much greater price than selfishness. In fact in the race of life, comfortable in the daily rigmarole – as we grow, we often start ignoring anything that takes us away from our comfort zone. The only actions that drive us, if we ponder, are ones that our sub conscious is absolutely used to. And the more and more we succumb to this comfort zone, our zeal to challenge and question the status quo dies…..

Why am I writing this…….

Well, I was also comfortable and ensconced in my comfort zone until few days ago when I decided to wake up and do something for a cause I had been thinking about for the past couple of months. It is not easy to fight for something that doesn’t impact you directly, or for something you can have a way out of….but if you give in to injustice once, good chances you would never muster courage to fight it ever.

I was also not able to muster the courage to stand up for a cause that I truly believed in. But I could never give away the feeling , the guilt that I bowed down to injustice and that’s where the thought of my documentary on misuse of section 498A was born. A gross injustice to men and their families – its a pain that many in this country are going through but still everyone is far away from any sense of relief.

Working on the documentary, I have been thinking that when thousands and millions in this country have been a victim of this law, how come no heed has been paid to amend it. Watching this video below, I realized the reason behind the same……

Many of you must have come across this video given the recent attack on Malala Yusufzai. For those who din’t….Malala and thousands of other kids were thrown out of the schools in Swat district of Pakistan by Taliban. This young, brave and committed girl has sworn to change things,however. Caring least about her life, she is fighting for rights of everyone around.

Malala leaves a very strong message in this video….a message many among us don’t dare to even think about….THAT TO WORK FOR A CAUSE, WE NEED TO MOVE BEYOND SELF…….

Malala shares how she had the option to go to a boarding school after her studies were interrupted. But I love the way she says – that she realized that if “She” goes to school, everyone else would be left behind with no future of theirs.

If I draw a simile to the situation of men in this country who have particularly been victimized cuz of gender biased dowry and violence laws, I see that we have very few Malala’s here. Most of the people still have their thoughts limited to “my case, my suffering, my rescue and my life.” There are very few like Malala who are fighting for the cause of future of others, leaving their self behind……

We get happy thinking that we have got away with things and money is dust of hand which will come and go but we ignore the future that we are creating – More and more people would become strong to skew things in their favor, Honesty would be taken for a ride..emotions for a roll. The demands would become higher and higher and proving innocence tougher and tougher. It would be then that we would feel….had we stood up for the cause 😦

I came across an article today in TOI on page..(i dunno which towards the last) ..extreme right hand corner in the bottom where a news about torture of an old lady by her daughter in law was mentioned. That wicked daughter in law had attempted to killed her Mother in law and left her at the doors of AIIMS in order to acquire the entire property. The news said that the matter will be probed….had a Mother in law done something like this with her daughter in law…she would have been behind bars until now and the family running helter-skelter to hide their faces. But the media doesn’t care to show the other side of the coin as well. To fight a system like that…we have a long way to go…..

We need many more crusaders for the cause of “Justice for Men”. Until and unless we come together leaving our individual cases aside, we would never be able to make a larger impact. Else, the talibanese laws would kill the future of not few but thousands of men of this country…..

Its time we realize this and surge ahead………….

**Quote Courtesy –  http://www.brainyquote.com