The morning newspaper, now and then, throws horrifying stories of road rage, a violent brawl or an altercation leading to severe injuries and many times, unfortunately, deaths too. One wonders to read, who are these people who fight over parking issues, a hit, or a misinterpreted turn? I am sure, my readers too will agree, there is hardly any crossing where we do not see liberal scenes of arguments, shouting and fights increasing commonly. One avoids such scuffles and thinks, “thank God, I am not the one” or many times, a wife calming a husband or a brother, to let go of it, after all, we never know what the other person may be carrying in his mind or his pocket. It is easy to fix a broken vehicle than a broken leg!
These incidents have led to an unseen fear and anxiety among everyone who snails through the maddening traffic on roads and hears the shrieks of the horns. As a therapist, I sometimes wonder, what raises the panic buttons, the anger alarms among people encouraging them to argue, quarrel and hit people on roads. The compulsions of the time management, stressful lives, the lifestyle race and the challenges of the inflated prices can be a reason to settle down. However, there is one explanation of why things are going out of proportion leading to excessive and serious offences.
This took me back to the memory of child-rearing and particularly to the one most common thing that I have observed happening with our generation, our previous one and getting passed over unconsciously as a legacy to our upcoming ones, too. I am sure you all will agree to have done this, presently doing this and have seen this always.
So let me ask a question to all of you today. When a small child, say six months or beyond, falls or gets hit with a toy, a chair, the corner of a bed, any furniture or just slips. What do we all do to console the child? I am sure the answer is unanimous irrespective of our cultures, backgrounds, languages. We console the child and pacify by saying, “who hit you? Say ‘hup’ (the utterance can be different) i.e. hit back and surprisingly, the innocent child follows and stops crying.”
Have you wondered by doing so, what we have unmindfully sown forever in the child’s mind? The answer is – whoever creates pain or hits you, hit back in life always. This largely becomes the foundation of a violent response when something later in life happens.
As an alternate, we can teach our flowering little tiny tots, to hug, embrace and love whatever has caused hurt or it is alright to have fallen. This way the subconscious mind of the child registers forever, that he or she can have a much compassionate reaction. It is not the Gandhian doctrine of ‘give the other cheek’. The simple idea is an aggressive backlash is not always the best solution.
Experiment it. You will be surprised to see that a child stops weeping while being empathetic. Let us vow to bring up a generation that has a peaceful, humane orientation from the very beginning. While these little ones still get groomed to face the Indian roads, let us bring them up with utmost positive attitude. For others, steering a courageous drive on twists and turns, I wish all of you safe travel amidst the ever boiling society and may each one of us reach our destinations without ever facing the madness, the altercations and the road rage and fall victims to the fury of an angry, impulsive, unknown mind!
