Tribute to Mother Teresa

It was during summer of 1984. I was doing my internship in Kolkata. As a student, I was staying in the hostel of St. Xavier's College on Park Street. Donald who was from XLRI was my constant companion during that period.

During one weekend, we walked over to The Mother House and met her. She was a short woman. She was 74 year old then. Wrinkles were visible on her face. What was more visible on the face was an easy smile and love. For me, she looked like a grandmother. We had a short conversation. She enquired about us. Donald asked her what can young persons like us do. She said, "You look around yourself. You would find so much to do, to help the people around. You do not have to go in search of the opportunities." While departing, I touched her feet. Her feet were short and fingers of the feet were bit irregular.

Enablers India pays homage to Mother Teresa who dedicated herself to "enabling" the sick, old and poor people. She is an inspiration to us and her life and work will continue to inspire and guide us.

4 September 2016.    

The pain of Dalits in India

I was working in a PSU. GC joined the company a little later. He had an engineering degree from IIT Kanpur. His first job was with Government of India. While he was from Scheduled Caste, he did not declare it while taking the first job. He competed with general candidates and got the job as Class A officer. He did quite well in his first job. 

However when he joined the PSU, it was on a post which was reserved for SC category. The main attraction for him was that this position was near his home town.  He applied and selection was a foregone conclusion. His capability was way above the competition. 

He did not know what was lying ahead /in store for him. I witnessed how he faced silent non cooperation. The greatest challenge was the label. He is from "Reserved category". This label was the biggest block. It resulted in highly reduced expectations of performance. This meant that he got weaker assignments. This is how the bias worked. 

This is essentially Self Fulfilling Prophecy working in negative manner.  If you have seen the movie My Fair Lady, you can recognise the phenomenon.

I had extended my cooperation as much as I could. But, I being junior, my help had limited impact. I saw firsthand the silent discrimination. Nobody will insult him. However, they will be formal with him. Spontaneity was usually absent. The conversation were sporadic in his presence.

While this happened three decades ago, I find this type of discrimination of the reserved category students and employees still continues. However it is more subtle now as nobody wants to appear as being unfair and biased. Masking of true feelings is now a more developed art. 

(Note: Author belongs to Brahmin caste, highly religious but has shed the Brahminical attitude and adopted Gandhian philosophy in both thoughts and practice.)