'Looking Down Ones Nose' at people....

I wanted to mention this in my post about "Maximum City - Bombay lost and found" review that I wrote some days ago, but eventually forgot as I got caught in the mode of mentioning whats in the book itself.

In there, while reading the book I realized how many of the criminals and bar girls mention how and when they started doing what they are doing... why? what was the origin?  - The consistent answer was more or less on these lines: Person is poor and/or from a low social class... life presents the person with woes, ill health, loss of parents, siblings getting killed by someone else, loss of money, loss of job, loss of self-esteem ... and the person in panic goes to the finer sense of the general public for help... pleads for something ... wants help or else is looking at imminent doom or loss of something very special or dear. And what does the 'finer' sense of public do? .... Its anybody's guess... We look DOWN on them, its not our duty, its not our head-ache, we feel 'oh what a pain'.. 'oh what riff-raff'... its a general sense of immediately looking down on such people as pests... and closing our doors on them. 

I am not saying that I as an individual or my family as my close people, have also never done that to anybody - in all probability we have - and the price to pay have never been worth it. 

These people who need help and don't get it, more or less develop a sense of 'injustice' and lots of anger. They then lose their sense of right, wrong, society and in general their own thinking of justice - coz they never did get any from anybody. As we all remember people who stand by us, in our worst times - so do they..... And since, nobody did, they like to join groups that inflict some form of 'revenge' - bomb blasts, killings, rapes etc. I am pretty sure, when they are caught or punished they feel no remorse at their deeds. I mean, they never did receive any justice to start with to understand it completely. 

I think this goes for countries, tribes - how they treat each other and whether they 'look down' on other communities, religions etc.... In my understanding, its the starting point to a lot of vices...  Perhaps, when we look down at someone again on the roads, in our everyday lives - a slight modification can actually be a slight change - for good!