Main Khayal Rakhta Hoon “I Care”

Robin Kumar Das Dhaka Diaries /Dec 2020

The definition of caring is someone who shows kindness and concern for others. A person concerned about others and who does kind things for them, is an example of someone who would be described as “caring”. This feeling for caring can come from your feelings towards that person , and when we want to ensure his or her well being .There can be numerous reason for this care for someone -a romantic relationship, a loving family relationship, a very dear friend , a friendly neighbour , a friend at work , subordinates, respected seniors, and many such relation . In some cases, we even care for people whom we do not know, but greatly respect them as a person. These can be the public figures, celebrities, our heroes whom we deeply admire, follow and wish for their wellbeing. Seeing movies of actors, we admire, sport personalities we love, local personalities who has brought fame to our city, country.

My reason to elaborate on the word “caring” is not to test any bodies understanding of the word. As on today we have 7.8 billion people residing on this earth. I bet if you throw a binary question – Are you a caring person?  to each of the 7.8 billion people who has the capability to respond, the answer would be an emphatic “Yes”. So, we all self-proclaim we are caring person. In our life we come across three to five people on everyday basis and another three to five others infrequently. And I guess all these six to ten people are caring person as per their understanding and perception of themselves. So, we live in happy happy world with all caring people around us.

Another word that has been an area of interest along with caring is depression. Over 300 million people globally are estimated to suffer from depression, equivalent to 4.4% of the world’s population. I have always thought that I am growing up in the most caring society in the world, until I went through a devastating article based on a WHO study. It says that India is the most depressed country on the world, 6.5 % of our huge population suffers with some sort of illness. But how is this possible. Just in the last paragraph we had said that we are all a very caring person. We live with people around us who are caring. So, if 300 Mn people are going through depression than, at least 3 billion people are not honest when they say they are caring about people who live around with them.

I had always thought I am always caring to people around. But if I get few layers below into my behaviour of such a situation I would say that probably it is not caring. Rather it is my response to that stimuli and rightful action was initiated. Let’s say that somebody is having a headache and you give him a pill to relieve him of the pain, or if someone is sick, and you take him to hospital. A friend has lost his job and ran out of money to survive, you go and help with some cash to last for few more months. These are good examples to show that main khayal rakhta hoon… But is this enough?  Are these not actions just to salvage a situation that has come, and you feel you have a responsibility to solve it.

There is always a body and a soul in each human, and till now all I have been doing is taking care of the body and not the soul. Caring should mean taking care of the soul that rest in the body. “Khayal rakhna” is to ensure that none of your loved one is left alone. “Khayal rakhna” is doing things that will ensure that your loved one is not falling sick. Caring is noticing the right acts around you and appreciating the same.  Caring does not mean that someone has to be in distress only then your hormones of caring will trigger. Don’t let your friend’s CV who has lost a job rot in your inbox for want of action! If you take a little pain to help him with a job at the right time, the so called khayal rakhta hoon attitude of lending few bucks will not arise, and you will reduce one depressed people in the world.

The lock down period has seen the ugliest part of my life of being -uncaring. Uncaring husband, uncaring father, many more. We were at the home, but never really with the family. Yes, the situation was tough, something for which no precedence was there. My company had the pressure to feed two hundred fifty thousand people working from home, no compromise on salary or any job at stake, and that synced on us! The professional requirement may have been the cause of this being -not available or uncaring when needed at family, but still was there a better to do it! When we had been busy morning to evening on the team and zoom calls ignorant of what’s happening in the house to keep it running. There was an expectation that the others in the family should understand that we are having a tough time.  Reflecting on those nine months of work from home, I can visualize hundreds of instances where I behaved like an absolute idiot with the family. Well I can’t undo it now, or say it was right or wrong. Maybe it was the situation responsible and hence the response. We might feel that in that situation we thought we displayed the highest level of professionalism to ensure that the show goes on, but we messed big time with the environment in the family. While between ourselves in the team meetings we applauded each other’s efforts in how innovatively we are managing business, we missed to complement our family on how well they had helped us to manage our show.

We are a caring society, irrespective of what the report says. It is just taking that little more effort to see that people around are happy and do that little bit to nurture the relationship. Healthy relationship is built not just on reacting to distress situation, but how we nurture the relationship on an ongoing regular basis. While each of us might have a unique way to ensure we continue to care, I can think of few pointers that can be of help.

1. Take notice of any change in behaviour pattern of your near once either positive and negative and act suitably.

2. Keep looking for good things done by people around you – today, yesterday, last week, last month and so on. Acknowledge and appreciate them openly.

3. Resolve issues if any without delaying for even a second.

It is all about caring at the right time, expressing at the right time, and giving the feeling of “main hoon na” to people around you. If “main hoon na “becomes a way of life, we can have so many happy things around us.

Happy family, happy office, happy society and happy country!

Robin