Courtesy was never dead

The world is made up mostly of good people

There are people who believe old times were great times. They think like the old-timers. According to them, courtesy and consideration are things of the past. My grandmother, who passed away a few years ago at the ripe old age of ninety-three, was of that view. She was not alone in holding such a view, but many of her contemporaries did not think differently.

A WhatsApp post forwarded by a friend a few days ago spoke highly of the exemplary behaviour of an honest, trustworthy tea vendor who served tea and snacks to passengers on a long-distance train.

However, the friend who forwarded the message did not think that these vendors were always truthful. According to him, cheats are often in the garb of good people. Or they simply pretend to be honest with a view to furthering their business.

His opinion brought back saint-poet Kabir’s words, profound as they are: ‘I wanted to find a bad person in the universe and found none.’

A couple of days after reading my friend’s WhatsApp post, my wife and I happened to travel by metro. In Mumbai, metro trains are as crowded as local trains. So, as we had expected, the train was packed. Still, we could get in, thanks to a couple of considerate youngsters who moved out of our way so that we could enter the train with ease. After getting in, we found ourselves walking along the gangway and standing at a place that was comparatively less crowded.

The moment they saw us, two women who looked like they were in their early thirties and off to work got up from their seats and said, ‘Please’ gesturing to us to occupy the seats emptied by them. We told them that we would like to stand so we could look out the window, but they would have none of it and insisted we sit. In truth, there is no dearth of such people.

Not true, said seventeenth-century French mathematician and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal. He thought people were selfish and unsympathetic and often tried to cheat others. The British philosopher and author Anthony Grayling countered Pascal’s views. He said Pascal was wrong in his assessment of human behaviour. Grayling’s arguments hinged on the research findings of two Swiss social scientists, who found that people are surprisingly selfless. Samuel Johnson did not think differently when he said the truth: there is very little hypocrisy in the world.

There are numerous instances to prove that people are caring and cooperative and try to help others. There may be exceptions, but they are not the rule. Even politicians are aware of this fact. They always promise ‘help’ to the needy. Though most of them may not have meant it, they know that their promises, although hollow, will entice people.