Work in progress

You know, one day early in the morning I went to a shop to return something and the shopkeeper said they don't accept returns before 12pm. When asked why he said because that is when we do our Lakshmi Puja. I lost my cool. I couldn't believe my ears that people live with such superstitions, I told him very rudely that 'customer is your Lakshmi and their service should be your Puja'.

And I have had many loud, public fights when I experienced gender bias, superstitions, and basically idiocy.

When I look at people like Richard Dawkins speaking in talk shows, people ask them questions like 'was the earth created 5000 years ago by God', these great people never lose their cool, they go on explaining at length about how the Earth wasn't 'created' and that it didn't happen 5000 years ago.

If you are teaching multiplication to a child - then you don't yell at them because you don't expect them to know it, you would go and explain it to them ten times if needed. And to do that it needs something more than patience.

It needs compassion.


Compassion is the quality I lack, not with children but with grown-ups, I expect them to know that they are being superstitious, illogical, gender-biased, following some stupid 1000-year-old customs- rituals and stuff like that. 

I am working really hard to be compassionate with ignorant/ regressive grown-ups. When someone says something regressive I 'try' not to be rude and harsh with my words. 

The same goes with writing - If I am writing about issues like superstitions, gender inequality, etc. then my first drafts are very harsh, I edit them a few times to tone them down. You may still think that my posts sound harsh and I use curse words but just remember that -

I am working on compassion and the work is in progress.