What will be your legacy?

What will be your legacy?

Synopsis:  We often think of what shall we leave behind for others to appreciate when we have faded away. Will it be something noble or ignoble? The choice is ours to make but how many of us make the right choice?



Image:Michelangelo's Pieta 5450 cropncleaned.jpg), CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3653602 ( Source : Google )

There was a young man who loved to draw. He made sketches and paintings and often played with stones and carved something out of it but never truly satisfied. So he secretly dissected cadavers in morgues in the dead of night to learn about how muscles worked and about human anatomy. He did this to learn how to sculpt very realistic human forms from solid marbles.

During his time the dissecting of cadavers was considered a crime and a desecration of human body but the morgue keeper saw in him an aspiring artist and let him do it in secret. He got up very early before dawn to inspect a piece of marble in the quarry to see how the first light of the sun played on the stone to reveal its imperfections so that he could select the very best piece for his sculpture he was planning to make.

Slowly his fame as an artist and sculptor grew so he was given the task of decorating the walls and the ceiling of the Sistine chapel by the Pope that he painted centuries ago. He painted the ceiling with fantastic art hanging upside down for hours at a time in a hammock in dim oil lamp straining his eyes and suffering excruciating pain in his body while doing so but he continued.

Now you all know who he was. He was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni who lived so long ago but his paintings and sculpture can be seen at the Vatican today that is so impressive. You will strain your neck looking up to see all the details of his art in the Sistine chapel so they will offer you a mirror.

I could only look at his masterpiece called Pieta that you will see on your right side as you enter the main door of the Vatican in total admiration and wondered how he could chisel out of solid stone the Pieta so perfectly that you could see the veins in the hand of Christ and the glow in the face of Madonna. What tools he had to achieve such perfection that is hard to believe unless seen? It was not easy for him. He practically became blind straining his eyes in the dim oil lamp and soot hanging upside down suffering pain and discomfort and gained little for all his effort but he left behind a legacy that endures through centuries.

Do people have to suffer so much to make a legacy? All the great names of our century and the past have made personal sacrifices like Michelangelo. Some have been jailed like Mandela for 28 years while others were shot like Martin Luther King who only wanted equal human rights for all. Abraham Lincoln was killed because he ended slavery. The history book is replete with names of people who made great personal sacrifices but left an enduring legacy for the generations to come.
We the common people are not like them because we fail to rise above our commonality and show our mettle but can we not also strive to leave behind something that people will admire for generations?

There was a young man in China who married a woman he loved but suffered the disapprobation of the community for some reason so he went away with his young wife and lived in a secluded mountainous area where he cultivated some land to grow his food and took care of his wife. She had to go down the steep mountain slope every day to fetch water from a valley stream and struggle up the slope with the burden but one day she slipped and fell hurting herself.

Source : Google photo of 6000 steps cut into the mountainside for his wife

So the young man started carving out steps on the solid rock of the mountain side and kept at it with his hammer and chisel for many years so that his wife would not fall again. Now people look at those steps and wonder at the dedication and love of this man for his beloved who left behind a great legacy although he did it for his wife only.

So common people may also have uncommon love and dedication like that simple Chinese man and do something extraordinary with their lives.

Source : Google photo of the mini Taj Mahal built for his wife

A man in India has built just by himself and a mason toiling under the hot sun month after month, year after year a mini Taj Mahal where he has buried his wife. He became very old and feeble but would not quit until the mausoleum for his wife was complete and he did it alone with no help from anyone. If that is not dedication and love then I do not know what is? He left behind a legacy that is still unmatched. He was just a retired postman.

There is a lady in England who has just by herself built massive stairs and retaining walls at the side of a cliff so that one can go down to the beach. Imagine a frail old woman with such dedication and determination? So  common people too may leave a legacy behind.

By legacy I do not mean 1500 pairs of shoes that a woman in the Philippines collected as an extreme example of conspicuous consumption or a dictator using public money to build a 1000 room palace with gold bathtubs in Bucharest while people remained poor and jobless. By legacy I mean something noble and glorious that is the result of extreme sacrifice.

I remember fondly our professor of agronomy during our college days in India who was so nice and so great that we all were in awe of him and mourned his sudden death due to heart attack but he too left behind his legacy in his students who became great agronomists later.

I remember our sweet librarian who always welcomed me whenever I was visiting the campus and who was so delighted like a child when I gave her a copy of my Ph.D dissertation for the library. She too left behind the legacy of a kind lady who gave me a part time job so that I could pay for my tuition. Such great men and women have all passed away but fondly remembered by those whom they helped.

I think every person has a seed of greatness in him or her that lies dormant for most people because it never gets the chance to grow due to many reasons some beyond their control.

I also think that doing noble work without asking for anything in return is what makes people great. A teacher remains poor but some of his students become scientists and great scholars. I remember a movie where an old primary school teacher was dying of cancer after retirement but one day many of her former students showed up with flowers and gifts .She clearly recalled all their names and how well they did in her class or not that brought tears to her former students among them the governor of the state and prominent personalities.

We all owe it to the next generation to leave behind something for them that they will benefit from. That is the true meaning of legacy.

In our own small insignificant ways we all are capable of touching the lives of others that leaves an impression, an indelible impression that propels them onto achieve greatness in their own time.

So be generous toward those who need your help. Be compassionate toward those who suffer because they are born poor and unfortunate. Be humble and selfless so that ego does not make you a mean and uncaring person. After all how you have lived your dash is more important than how long you have lived, isn’t it?

Michelangelo said “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

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Price they paid for love

Price they paid for love

Synopsis : We could all learn something from the sacrifices some people make for their love for each other as Anarkali , Laila and Juliet did so long ago and became a legend.



Source : Google photo of a painting of Anarkali and Salim

Have you ever heard of Anarkali? Chances are you have not so today I will write about a very beautiful girl called Anarkali whose very tragic life is a testament to what some people are asked to sacrifice just because they fell in love.

Anarkali means pomegranate blossom so it was most likely her nickname but I am sure she had a real name and was a real person who lived in the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the 16^th century India. Anarkali was not a cheap prostitute to please others because she belonged to the harem of Akbar so she must have been chosen for her beauty and her talents.

All Muslim rulers and their princes kept their harems full of women who were literally kept as slaves because they had no liberty and could not see other men. They were jealously guarded by the armed guards 24 hours of the day and killed any intruder who was not authorized to visit the harem. To make sure that the guards did not have funny ideas that could lead them to some indiscretions on their own, they were castrated so they were eunuchs just like in the forbidden palace in Beijing in the olden days.

These beautiful but helpless women were purchased from the slave traders who kidnapped them from many parts of the world and they were traded as a commodity and not as a human being. The king could never marry them because as Muslims they were only allowed 4 wives so they were kept as concubines .

Now Akbar himself was no stranger to love as the history shows because he married a beautiful Hindu princess called Jodha Bai from Rajputana ( Rajasthan now) and made her the Queen of India and loved her dearly and fulfilled all her wishes but he also kept other wives and a harem full of pretty women like Anarkali to boot. It was the standard practice at that time so many rich people in power did the same and sired numerous illegitimate children from their concubines that created its own problems later on.

But let us focus on Anarkali . She saw the crown Prince Salim and fell in love at once with him as did the prince himself. Anarkali was not just a beautiful woman like any other but she was a great dancer, musician, educated and talented in many arts and calligraphy but she broke the taboo being in the harem of the king so Akbar got very angry with the lovers and forbade any further contact between them so prince Salim rebelled and took a large number of troops sympathetic to his cause to give battle to his father.

The outcome of this rebellion by the prince was a foregone conclusion because the loyal army of Akbar easily defeated the rebels and the unrepentant Salim was brought to his father in chains to face the music so to speak. Akbar was still very angry with his son so ordered him to be blown away by canon fire so the hapless prince was tied up to a post to face the canon that his father himself lit.
But a General sympathetic to the cause of the prince turned the canon at the last moment so the ball went in a different direction saving the life of the prince. By this time the anger of the king had abated somewhat and he realized that the prince was after all to be the next king. Perhaps the queen mother was also able to convince him to cut the prince a bit of slack and go easy on him.

But Akbar was still angry with Anarkali who had to be punished. A crown prince could never marry a commoner like her so he ordered her to be buried alive but that was probably just in the movie made in the sixties called Mughal e Azam where it was shown that secretly a tunnel was dug under the tomb to take out Anarkali that way. Indians did not like sad endings in their movies so were relieved when Anarkali escaped her death.

Some say that she was exiled by the King to Lahore where she spent the rest of her life on a small pittance and piety which was indeed a sad ending of such a beautiful girl who was so talented. She was punished for loving the wrong person but the history shows that prince Salim who later became the king never forgot Anarkali and built a nice mausoleum where she is buried in Lahore. People place flowers on her grave and wish all loves are so priceless and exemplary.

                                Source : Google photo of the grave of Anarkali in Lahore

The grave of Anarkali in Lahore that has Arabic inscriptions identifying it as her grave. The painting below shows she being buried alive by the order of the king .
(The tomb is accessible to the public in Lahore. Anarkali was a legendary favorite in the harem of Emperor Akbar. Apparently she had fallen in love with Akbar’s son Prince Salim . One day Akbar saw her return Salim’s smile and as a punishment she was buried alive in 1599 – Source  Wikipedia)



Source : Google photo of a painting depicting the execution of Anarkali

Known for his temper ,the mighty king Akbar quite likely gave the order so that she was executed this way but her place of execution is not known although probably in Agra.


There is another tragic story of unrequited love that I write about here called the story of Laila and Majnu.




Source : Google photo of Laila and Majnu

The Story:

Qays ibn al-Mulawwah fell in love with Layla al-Aamiriya. He soon began composing poems about his love for her, mentioning her name often. His unselfconscious efforts to woo the girl caused some locals to call him "Majnun." When he asked for her hand in marriage, her father refused because it would be a scandal for Layla to marry someone considered mentally unbalanced. Soon after, Layla was married to another noble and rich merchant belonging to the Thaqif tribe in Ta'if. He was described as a handsome man with reddish complexion whose name was Ward Althaqafi. The Arabs called him Ward, meaning "rose" in Arabic.

When Majnun heard of her marriage, he fled the tribal camp and began wandering the surrounding desert. His family eventually gave up hope for his return and left food for him in the wilderness. He could sometimes be seen reciting poetry to himself or writing in the sand with a stick.
Layla is generally depicted as having moved to a place in Northern Arabia with her husband, where she became ill and eventually died. In some versions, Layla dies of heartbreak from not being able to see her would-be lover. Majnun was later found dead in the wilderness in 688 AD, near Layla’s grave. He had carved three verses of poetry on a rock near the grave, which are the last three verses attributed to him.

“ I pass by these walls, the walls of Layla
  And I kiss this wall and that wall
  It’s not Love of the walls that has enraptured my heart
  But of the One who dwells within them  ”



Layla visits Majnun in the wilderness; Indian watercolour held by the Bodleian Library  (Source :By Arie m den toom - eigen werk / selft made, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3508955)


Many other minor incidents happened between his madness and his death. Most of his recorded poetry was composed before his descent into madness.

It is a tragic story of undying love much like the later Romeo and Juliet. This type of love is known as "virgin love" because the lovers never marry or consummate their passion. Other famous virgin love stories set in Arabia are the stories of Qays and Lubna, Kuthair and Azza, Marwa and Al Majnoun Al Faransi, and Antara and Abla. This literary motif is common throughout the world, notably in the Muslim literature of South Asia, such as Urdu ghazals.

The story of Layla and Majnun was known in Persia as early as the 9th century. Two well known Persian poets, Rudaki and Baba Taher, both mention the lovers.
Although the story was known in Arabic literature in the 5th century, it was the Persian masterpiece of Nizami Ganjavi that popularized it dramatically in Persian literature. Nizami collected both secular and mystical sources about Majnun and portrayed a vivid picture of the famous lovers. Subsequently, many other Persian poets imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. Nizami drew influence from Udhrite love poetry, which is characterized by erotic abandon and attraction to the beloved, often by means of an unfulfilled longing. Other influences include older Persian epics, such as Vāmiq u 'Adhrā, written in the 11th century, which covers a similar topic of a virgin and her passionate lover; the latter having to go through many trials to be with his love.

In his adaptation, the young lovers become acquainted at school and fell desperately in love. However, they could not see each other due to a family feud, and Layla's family arranged for her to marry another man. According to Dr. Rudolf Gelpke, "Many later poets have imitated Nizami's work, even if they could not equal and certainly not surpass it; Persians, Turks, Indians, to name only the most important ones. The Persian scholar Hekmat has listed no less than forty Persians and thirteen Turkish versions of Layli and Majnun." According to Vahid Dastgerdi, "If one would search all existing libraries, one would probably find more than 1000 versions of Layli and Majnun."
In his statistical survey of famous Persian romances, Ḥasan Ḏulfaqāri enumerates 59 ‘imitations’ (naẓiras) of Layla and Majnun as the most popular romance in the Iranian world, followed by 51 versions of Ḵosrow o Širin, 22 variants of Yusuf o Zuleikha and 16 versions of Vāmiq u ʿAḏhrā.   ( Source : Wikipedia )

There are many such stories of unrequited love found in many countries that lovers still shed their tears upon like that of Anarkali  or Romeo and Juliet. I have seen the house of Juliet in Verona , Italy but not the grave of Anarkali in Lahore.

The house of Juliet in Verona, Italy

The tomb of Juliet in Verona

Source : Google photo of the house and tomb of Juliet in Verona, Italy

What makes these stories remarkable and eternal is the tragedy that befell the lovers that destroyed them and set an example of how great their sacrifice was and how steadfast they were in their love for each other. Can you imagine the agony of a young and beautiful girl being buried alive just because she was in love? Can you feel her pain centuries later?

They set the bar for love very high indeed.


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International students

International students

Synopsis: Studying in prestigious universities abroad remains a dream of many students because only a few get admitted while others get discouraged due to high cost. I look at the growth of private universities that are being run as business that cater to the rich but leave behind many brilliant students who just can’t afford the cost.



Source: Google photo

Now we see more and more students who study abroad for their higher education giving rise to a multi-billion dollar growth in the education sector. Some universities are so sought after that they reap huge benefits in revenues from foreign students and advertise constantly to lure more students to their campus while others simply open up new campuses overseas that offer the same curriculum or tie up with other universities in the home countries of the students with exchange programs or credit to courses.

This has made it easier for the foreign students to attend the universities of higher education in their own countries where they set up campuses or have intra university tie ups.

Here in the Philippines I have known that the Cornell University in the USA offered its students to do their research for dissertation in the Philippines because of such tie ups with the university here and a friend of mine brought students from the Philippines to his university in the USA to earn some credits in some courses through such exchange programs.

When I was a graduate student in California a long time ago, I was frequently asked by the Americans if I was an exchange student and were very surprised when I said that no one was exchanged for me. I was on my own and worked part time to meet my expenses.

This trend of studying abroad has picked up considerably lately because the universities actively seek foreign students who bring in huge revenues to them and help the universities an increase in their prestige, popularity and rankings. Not all the foreign students return home after their graduation so many opt for staying; getting a residency permit that eventually may lead to their acceptance as citizens.

They get jobs, marry and settle down in their new country but there are many who return home and find jobs there. I did not return home after my graduation from California University but I did not stay there either because I opted for the international life I chose and enjoyed.

I want to focus today on why so many young people choose to go abroad. I also want to look at the means of getting there that has changed dramatically since I was a student so long ago.

During my time there were only very limited options available to poor students like me. One was to seek a scholarship from a foreign university that paid for all or most of the expenses including the airfare or sea fare. The second option was to go as independent using own resources that was a much harder option because the cost of such education was high and beyond reach of poor students or their families.

There was a third option that I chose because I was lucky to be chosen as a volunteer to work in Vietnam in an agricultural team that paid me a small stipend that I saved meticulously for two years that then enabled me to go for higher studies in California. The part time job there helped meet my expenses so I graduated with 50 dollars still in my pocket and a bright future in Algeria but you can say that I was lucky and daring.

To be jobless and moneyless after graduation in America is a very difficult proposition for a foreign student in there because there is absolutely no one to help you out even temporarily and there is no family to support you like back home. So many foreign students who intend to stay there after graduation start looking for jobs frantically even before graduation and apply for the resident permit that allows them to work. In other countries like Australia, they make it easier for the foreign student to get the necessary permits so that they can stay and work and eventually get the citizenship because they want new graduates who have brought in new skills that the country needs.

When I was young, our parents could not afford to pay for my foreign education so I had to find a way to do it on my own and I suppose it was true of most families so going abroad for studies was a big deal in those days. Only those who got scholarships could do it but such people were few in numbers.

Now the economic situation has improved dramatically for the ordinary middle class in many countries like China and India so many families now can afford to send their children abroad by saving for such huge expenses for a long time.

The question to ask is why students opt to go for higher studies abroad in the first place when there are many good universities at home? The answer is the prestige of such education that gets them jobs easily and the opportunity to settle in a new country where they can earn more and live the life with some measure of prosperity. That seems to be the ultimate goal of higher education for most if not all people.

People do not get education just because they want to be educated but they do it to learn some marketable skills that are in great demand somewhere with good pay and a promise for a better life than at home.

The older generation of our parents and grandparents was content to find a job in their home country and raise their family on meager salaries because they could not imagine sending their children abroad. It was simply out of the question. They expected their children to get a good education and find a job near them just like everyone else and be happy with the mediocre life of a small town person with small salary because going abroad was for the rich people and not the ordinary poor folks.

The next generation that came along during the era of rapid technological advance and the age of internet, free Skype and instant messaging service worldwide has now become more audacious than the previous generation and seeks opportunities on-line and finds them.

You can get admitted to a good university somewhere on-line or find a job on line and get interviewed on line through Skype. You can apply for scholarships on line and can search the internet for all the scholarships available worldwide to seek the one you want. You can get the response also on line and quickly. This kind of advancement in technology was unheard of during the previous generation that has allowed many young people to find ways and means to go abroad and study in a school of their choice.

I did it in the old-fashioned way before the era of internet and Skype so it was considered unusual by many at that time but it is no longer unusual anymore. Many are going and many more are falling in line to go by seeking work visas in the US because they have the education and skills that are in demand there although there has been some backlash now.

How the foreign students are treated abroad?  

Now I come to the sticky part of this issue when I see that some Indian students in Melbourne have been attacked by the local thugs who see them as undesirable aliens who must be beaten up because they are of dark skin etc. so racism is involved. In other countries the far right local politicians are saying that these foreign students of dark skins are taking away jobs from the locals and want to settle down instead of going back to where they came from etc. that encourages such attacks on them by local thugs. This sort of thing is not widespread but it gets headlines back home making other aspirants to think twice before going abroad.

An ancient tradition:

Students going abroad for studies they could not get at home is an ancient tradition dating back thousands of years. The University of Taxila and Nalanda in India had many foreign students thousands of  years ago. There was no visa and passport requirement in those days. Students just appeared at the universities and were admitted, housed and fed and taken care of by the sponsors who were the kings and queens or other rich people who saw the merit in doing so. The student could stay for many years if he so desired and find employment easily later. Many returned home to become teachers themselves. The destruction of such centers of advanced learning in the hands of Muslims is another story that is out of the scope of this blog here.

Hiuen Tsang came to India from China on foot crossing the mighty Himalayas to study at Nalanda centuries ago such was the fame of Nalanda that reached China. Taxila was even older than Nalanda meaning before Christ. They had massive libraries of hand written books and scrolls in parchment or on palm leaves that were systematically burned by the fanatic hordes of Muslims who burned the universities to the ground but it shined as a center of learning for a very long time before that.
The university at Timbuktu in Mali was also very famous where many students from around the world attended long ago but nothing remains now except some parchments of their once massive library that is slowly crumbling to dust.

The modern era:

We now come to the modern age of learning when we have seen a rise in the number of centers of higher learning everywhere phenomenally in the last century first due to endowments making land grant colleges possible in the United States that has served as a model for other countries to do the same. We have seen the rise in the numbers of private universities everywhere that are run purely as business where students are trained in skills in demand but where the students are required to pay high fees for their education.

The high cost of education in some countries now makes students indebted because they take student loans they pay back for years to come. Some female students get into prostitution to earn to pay for their education but the foreign students are spared because either they have sponsors or financial assistance from the university. I was denied financial assistance by my college because they did not believe my argument that I saved 600 dollars in my bank account to pay for my return ticket to India.
We have seen a rise in the colleges and universities that are funded by the religious institutions like Vatican or other religions thus we have the Benares Hindu University or the Aligarh Muslim University in India, Catholic universities in the Philippines and the United States where the religion is emphasized.

But long ago the tradition of non-denominational centers of learning based on pure knowledge in science, mathematics, astrology, logic, astronomy, economics and many such subjects was born in India that welcomed anyone irrespective of caste, religion, race or ethnicity so students came from  everywhere to learn from the masters there.

Now many see higher education is a business to make money so they invest in massive buildings, staff and laboratories and pay good salaries to all staff. Students are housed in modern dormitories and have all the facilities to live on campus nicely and get the education they want. They just have to pay the price that rules out poor students who have to go elsewhere.

The advances in technology now allows a professor to teach a class through Skype in another country or another place far away and the students now go to their classes carrying laptop computers that they use for instant searches of reference materials they need.

However, for most of the poorer countries where they lag behind in the development and use of such technologies, students have to contend with very limited resources available to them. I see it here in the Philippines where the libraries are so poorly stocked of books they are supposed to keep that students borrow the book to photocopy at great expense adding to the financial burden on their parents.

In numerous countries worldwide, the dream of a poor student to get higher education just remains a dream while for some, getting any sort of education especially for girls remains a goal that they find hard to achieve. I have written about Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan who is fighting hard for the education of all girls everywhere but it is an uphill battle for many.

I envy the countries in Europe where higher education is guaranteed by the state to anyone who wants it, where all expenses are paid by their government and where everybody is encouraged to be educated. The governments there invest heavily in the education sector by subsidizing everything or pay for everything so that everybody has a chance to get education. But in countries where education is a business, students get into serious debt problem as a consequence.

I see the future not in rosy terms for those less fortunate than others who also want to go abroad for studies because of high cost and a lack of sponsorship so what is the alternative? The education should not create the elite class that then reaps all the benefits leaving behind the vast majority that ends up just dreaming.

Is that the only way a country makes progress?


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Am I your servant?

Synopsis: The term servant taken literally can be demeaning and derogatory to any human being. I look at the master servant relationship under different situations and expose its malevolent nature in this blog.

Am I your servant?



Source : Google photo of a mistreated person

We humans have always demanded others to serve us to meet our daily needs. How we demand has changed over the centuries but the servant master relationship still exists in other forms that I will discuss in this blog today.

The Romans and the Egyptian rulers demanded service from slaves who had no rights of their own and existed only to serve their masters and were often punished with death if the master was not pleased with their service. Young and pretty slave women were kept only to serve the sexual desires of their masters and often mistreated. Romans kept thousands of slaves to build their infrastructure, stadia and aqua ducts etc. and to power their galley ships during the war and chained them to their seats. The poor slaves drowned if the ships went down.

Cleopatra used her slaves to taste her food to see if it was poisoned so many died doing so .The inglorious history of mankind is replete with such abuse of servants by their masters. No one could protest because the slaves as servants had no rights of their own and could be treated anyway the master felt like.

We now come to the modern time and see how this servant master relationship has developed for the better or has it remained the same as before albeit in a different form?

Almost daily we read or hear about the maids being raped or physically mistreated by their masters in the Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere just because they can do it with impunity but once in a while a maid fights back. There was a 16 year old girl who stabbed and killed her employer in a Middle Eastern country when he tried to rape her. It was a case of self-defense but the poor girl was arrested  and given a harsh punishment until a great clamor for her release arose in her home country so finally under tremendous international pressure, she was released to return home.

We always hear of such physical abuse of poor hapless women who only want to earn their honest wages and escape the poverty back home but end up getting raped, beaten and even tortured by their employers with no recourse to their ill treatment. Men who work in the construction jobs there also tell us how badly they are treated by their employers who force them to live like animals in overcrowded   hostels under appalling conditions violating all the labor codes as promulgated by the ILO.  Repeated complaints to their government serves very little purpose as they make fake promises to improve the conditions of workers but in reality nothing changes.

Someone told me that his brother’s wife in Delhi left her maid locked in her apartment for days or weeks while she went out of town which was so shocking to me that I was speechless for a while. How can anyone treat a maid so heartlessly? Doesn’t she have any rights? I have seen the same thing here in our neighborhood where the employers lock their house for the day so their poor maid sits on the sidewalk the whole day waiting for them to return. Doesn’t she need to eat or go to the bathroom or rest?

One movie actress used hot iron on her maid that burned her badly just because she was angry with the maid for some reason. She was rich and had lawyers who got her out of the legal problems but we hear of such cases again and again because of its tabloid nature and wonder how people still behave like the Romans after all these centuries.

In India a menial servant who cleans your house and polishes your boots is called Naukar. A naukar means a servant but in a derogatory sense because he is just a lowly servant who is prone to be abused by his master. The British took the meaning of a servant to a new level of deprecation because they expected a servant to polish their shoes, tie their shoe laces and bring them cold drinks at any hour of the day. A naukar brought to his master his hookah that he prepared meticulously with glowing charcoal and tobacco and even gave his master a massage when demanded.

So the word naukar has stayed in the Indian vocabulary even today because people will ask you if you have found a naukari  meaning a job. When I say that I am no one’s naukar , they say that of course we all are naukars because we serve as servants. Who are the elected officials? Aren’t they called public servants?

This is because they do not have a better word to replace the derogatory word naukar ,so they keep on using it. I can suggest a better word like employee or a contract worker or a professional or even a consultant which sounds better than naukar  but people still use them due to their colonial mentality developed during the long British Raj. It is like a freed slave who is still smarting from his past status and has a hard time coming to terms with his new one.

Once I saw an Algerian movie in Algeria that showed how the poor Algerian women working in the car assembly plant of Renault in France were harassed sexually, mentally and psychologically daily by their supervisors who were white until one day a girl so abused fought back. It galvanized other workers in the factory who then collectively demanded the removal or suspension of the abusive supervisor who had the power to fire anyone he did not like and who complained. I do not remember finally what happened to the girl but I do remember how the Algerians reacted so angrily to this sort of abuse that goes on even today in France.

Once I saw a store keeper in Washington, D.C. shout and yell at his Ethiopian employee in front of me and was terribly shocked at this behavior. The Ethiopian gentleman looked so crestfallen and humiliated that I felt very sorry for him but could do nothing except to walk out in disgust. No one should treat another person this way. It is an abuse of power over a helpless person just like that Algerian girl in the Renault factory.

How many times you have seen in the Hollywood movies the boss asking his secretary to bring him coffee right away with two sugar cubes or buy roses for his mistress? The poor girl is a secretary and not his personal servant at his beck and call all the time. If she complains then she is fired so the poor girl does what the abusive boss asks of her that may even include sex on the sly.

There is a classic story of such abuse in India that is too tempting to overlook so I will mention it here. There was a medical student who was very smart and got good grades in most of her subjects except in one where her teacher demanded sexual favors from her in order to give her good grades.

On the day of the practical exam when an external examiner came to give her a test in her troubled subject, she broke into tears in his presence. The examiner sensing something was wrong asked her abusive teacher to leave the room so that he could learn from the girl what was wrong. The poor girl told him everything and said that this particular teacher was harassing many other girls as well. The examiner was very sympathetic toward the girl and gave her high marks because he found out that the girl was very smart and knew her subject well.

So there are all kinds of situations where an employer abuses his employee or a teacher abuses his students or a housewife locks up her maid in her apartment for days while she goes out of town.
Here in the Philippines, I have noticed how poorly people treat their hired helps be they maids or gardeners or grass cutters. They work very hard under the sun but are not given even a glass of cold water or something to eat and rest. They never invite the laborers, masons and carpenters to their house blessing ceremony so our workers were very surprised when we did so and were very happy. My wife takes care of our hired help by giving them food and water because she is a very kind hearted lady who treats everybody well.

I was once told by an American who took wedding photos how badly he was treated by the rich people who ordered him around like a menial servant and even got angry when they did not like the photos he took. They never offered him food and drinks so now I know that such poor treatments of human beings are more common than one can imagine.

We now see that even today the meaning of servant is taken literally by many who see them as nothing more than uneducated poor fellows who should be grateful for the pittance people throw at them for the services rendered but it is an obsolete and very degenerative mentality that is reprehensible in anyone let alone someone who should know better.

When my wife offered a hot cup of freshly made tea to the poor and shivering maid in India, she was laughed at by the women who said that she was spoiling the maid. They gave them lukewarm left over tea only. They also ridiculed me for giving a beggar five Rupees saying that I was spoiling them. But India still suffers from the colonial mentality so people feel that now they have become the masters, they should treat the servants the same way the British did. May be it is called the reverse psychology but wrong just the same.

The question to ask here is how to educate people so that they can learn to treat other human beings well so that they feel happy. It is a well-known fact that people work harder and become loyal when they are well treated, well paid and looked after than those who are not.

In Japan a factory worker in an assembly plant for cars or other things has the right to stop the assembly if he notices something wrong so the supervisors come over quickly to find out what is wrong, fix the problem so that the assembly can start again. It prevents the shoddy practices and improves the overall quality of cars or other things being assembled so it is no wonder that the Japanese cars are known for their high quality.

They also listen to workers in meetings who may offer new ways to make the product better and are given rewards if their proposals are implemented. But a worker who has no voice and cannot take part in the decision making process in the plant feels just like a cog in the machine that is heartless. When  a worker in a Firestone tire plant in the US complained of the poor quality of tires being manufactured, he was summarily dismissed instead of taking his advice to correct the problem and make better quality tires.

So there is a tendency to ignore the employees who may have bright ideas because the employers are afraid of such employees. Who knows what other bright ideas they may come up with like unionizing the workers for better pay and work conditions or better health care or pension plans? The employers tend to come down hard on such workers or choose to ignore them.

They used to hire the goons called the Pinkertons who beat up workers who demanded better pay and good working conditions and tried to unionize to make their demands collective.
I am very disappointed in those who still treat a human being this way today and continue to exploit them due to their own greed and selfishness. Equal treatment for all, better gender equality, better working conditions, better healthcare and pension benefits, better and humane treatment of all can dramatically improve the economic health of any company so it is in their own interest to do so.

A happy person is a hardworking and a loyal worker but he is not your servant. He is certainly not your naukar.


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Learn loyalty from dogs

Synopsis : Loyalty is a wonderful word but difficult to find in anyone these days. It is given voluntarily and cannot be demanded using threats or intimidation so the dog called Hachiko shows us the way to show loyalty at the cost of his life.

Source : Google photo of Hachiko the dog at the Shibuya station,Tokyo

There was a man who took the train every day at the Shibuya station in Tokyo while his dog waited for him the whole day at the station for him to return in the evening and showed great delight when he returned. Together they went away happily. People got used to seeing the gentleman who was a professor and his dog at the station every day and some greeted them.

One day the gentleman failed to return for some reason while the dog patiently waited for him but the evening came and then the night but he did not return. The dog waited there day after day and night after night for his master, whimpered and cried due to hunger and grief but would not budge and would not take any food from anyone.

People were amazed at the extreme loyalty of the dog to his master but could not help the dog in anyway except to watch him slowly die of hunger. The news of the loyalty of the dog spread through the media and there arose a clamor for the dog to be remembered in a special way so money was collected and a beautiful statue of the dog was erected in front of the Shibuya station that you can see today.

We have all heard of such loyalty in dogs and admire but it is very hard to find such loyalty in human beings. I have seen photos of dogs lying on the graves of their masters and shedding tears and refusing to eat or move away until they died but can you imagine any human being doing so? Can you imagine anyone not eating and dying, doing so out of loyalty and grief?

The mafia people ask for absolute loyalty to them and punish those disloyal with death but that is not true loyalty because it is demanded with the consequence of violence so the fear is involved. Now some politicians are doing the same with threats and consequences just like the mafia people but it is not loyalty.

Loyalty  that is due to love and faithfulness like that of a dog is true loyalty because it is given out of own volition and not because of threats.

Kings and tyrants, despots and power hungry people demand loyalty which is grudgingly given because people are afraid. How many people give their loyalty to someone whom they privately despise yet are afraid to admit? How many people just wait for their turn to take revenge on someone who threatens them every day with punishment for disloyalty?

Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her own body guards who were Sikhs and who hated her for her decision to attack the terrorists hiding in the Golden temple of Amritsar. Anwar Sadat was killed by the Islamists in the army who hated him for making peace with Israel and Hitler was attacked by numerous people because they knew that he was destroying Germany but his luck was with him every time so he survived only to kill himself when there was no other choice left to him.

So everyone demands loyalty. Spouses demand it from each other, families demand it of their members, employers demand it from their employees, politicians demand it from their underlings and people who are illegitimate in holding power demand it from their staff and inner circle. It seems that everyone demands loyalty but few get it.

Wives cheat on their husbands, husbands cheat on their wives, brothers cheat their own brothers and sisters out of inheritance and body guards kill their masters due to political reasons so it seems that loyalty is in short supply.

We have faced the problem of disloyalty of our maids here for over thirty years who have stolen money or things or have quit when we were against their immoral behaviors. None in 30 years had shown an iota of loyalty for their employment and the care and concern we showed them. I very much doubt if loyalty was a part of their vocabulary or they knew the meaning of it. Certainly they never practiced it. We do not miss such people when they leave and disappear for good.

But an animal knows the meaning of loyalty and will die for you to save you from harm. Dogs are known to carry an infant in their mouth out of a burning building at the risk of their own life but can any person be counted upon to do the same? I know that the firefighters risk their lives daily to save people from burning buildings but it is not loyalty that drives them to do so. It is just a part of their job albeit a risky one.

The army demands absolute loyalty from soldiers and instructs that no wounded soldier in the battle field should be left behind but that is not loyalty but due to the fear that a captured soldier may spill secrets under torture that may jeopardize the army operations. The soldiers are just pawns in the games the governments play and often you hear of terrible conditions under which the wounded soldiers are treated back home.

The Vietnam War veterans returned home only to find a life of drugs, abandonment and homelessness because there was no care or concern for their sacrifices from anyone. Some were despised for going to fight in Vietnam while others were ignored. Their wives showed no loyalty and often ran away with someone else. A war memorial was built at a great cost in Washington, D.C. but the returned veterans were not cared for the way they should have been.  The cheap medals pinned on them did not serve their medical and other needs.

Have you seen the photo of a crane that flies thousands to kilometers every year to return to its mate who is injured and cannot fly away? That is loyalty. Have you seen the photo of a man carrying his very old parents in baskets hung from a bamboo pole on his shoulder and walking from Myanmar to safety in Bangladesh? That is loyalty and very rare. It makes international news because it is so rare to see such loyalty in human beings. It will not make news if it was common.

When loyalty comes out of love for a person the way a dog loves his master, it has more meaning therefore love is the reason why people show loyalty but when there is no love then there is no loyalty. I think love is the fundamental reason for any relationship between two people but this love is very conditional.

You can’t love your parents who are very abusive toward you, ill-treat you and do not feed you properly. You can’t love your siblings if they are mean and selfish toward you. You can’t love your relatives who take advantage of you and scorn you when they do not get what they want from you. You can’t love a narcissistic person who is toxic and takes advantage of you using the word friend liberally. Between such people there can be no loyalty ever.

So loyalty is earned because it is so conditional. If all the conditions are met then a loyalty develops but not so with a dog. A dog loves his master unconditionally to even death as shown in that case mentioned earlier. He pays back in loyalty and love for the care he receives.

During the British Raj in India a curious loyalty developed among the foot soldiers who served in the British Army. It was called the loyalty to salt. It comes from the Middle East tribal culture where someone who has eaten your salt can’t go against you. The Indian soldiers used the same reason for not taking up arms against their oppressors although some 60000 left their service and joined the Indian national Army of Bose to fight for the independence. Obviously not all soldiers believed in Salt. It is quite an outdated concept now.

Bose himself tried to convince the Indian prisoners in Germany to come and join his army to fight the British in India but many refused due to the loyalty of the salt although several thousand of them were willing to join the INA. Hitler could not repatriate a large number of soldiers by land through enemy territories so that plan fell apart.

We often hear the word doglike devotion but why the dogs have such devotion and loyalty while we fall short of emulating them? It is because devotion, love and loyalty are all conditional. It is also conditional in dogs because a master who ill-treats his dog and feeds it poorly will not be loved by the dog and may even get bitten as recompense. The dog depends on his master for his food and care but a dog is devoted and loyal to a child without conditions because the dog knows that the child must be protected at all times.

His loyalty for the child comes from a love the dog develops for the child because the child plays with him and may even steal food to give to the dog when the master does not.

Even wild animals are known to show love and loyalty to someone who cared for them when they were orphans. The movie Born free showed it where the lions raised as cubs by a compassionate man never forgot him. The same thing happened when the wild elephants came to the bedside of a dying man who had raised them with love and great compassion in his orphanage and released them in the forest later. They had not forgotten him and showed love and loyalty when they knew he was dying so came to pay their last respect. How they knew is unknown.

Now the loyalty due to salt is as rare as a hen’s tooth. People quit their jobs if they have a better opportunity somewhere else or due to abusive employers or many other reasons. There is no longer the lifelong employment to serve only one employer. The employers are also edgy and often fire employees for sundry reasons so the lifelong loyalty does not develop here. The economic health of the corporation or the office that employs you determines the hiring and firing of employees so a longtime loyal relationship does not develop. 

In Japan the companies often demanded some sacrifices from their long time employees to take some pay cut during hard times but now people are not so willing. An educated and highly skilled person does not feel the need to be employed for life under one employer because he can get another job with better pay somewhere else.

But when people are not very well educated and have only limited skills tend to stick to the job they have because they have few other options. It is not due to their loyalty but because they have no other option.

So I return to the issue of loyalty and the doglike devotion that Hachiko showed and wonder how such loyalty can be found in us. Can we really learn something from dogs that we can’t learn from each other?

I will conclude here that we all need to treat others and animals we keep fairly and with love and compassion without ever asking for a reward. Such rewards come in spades when least expected.  


Note :  My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese  languages at the following links :

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