Dignity of Labour- Heard this one before?!?

I must thank you all for taking time for reading these posts and sharing your views and I most sincerely welcome your comments, suggestions .I would love to see this as a platform for keeping the debate ‘alive’- as someone very rightly said, “ mere senee mein nahi,tere sene mein sahi, yeh aag kahi na kahin to jalni chahiye”!

So, what say, any thoughts on our “Shaurya”?!? Let me know what it means to you…it should mean something to each one of us...it could be as simple as a life lived with honesty and dignity. (Is it that simple!?!) Don’t you feel that these words ‘honesty’ & ‘dignity’ are used as mere ‘decorative’ words and probably we hardly bother about the ‘intent’ and ‘spirit’-we have been made to understand that these are rather “larger than life” phrases, hopelessly idealist! May be this is an interpretation of convenience…may be….

Long time back, I had read about ‘Dignity of Labour’ and I sincerely believe in this, I try my level best to never hold /show any disrespect to any form of labour ….and why not, everybody cannot afford a white collar job and everyone who works/strives hard to earn their living through hard work deserve all the respect in the world, (personally speaking, the only exception are those typical Indian ‘politicians’).

I want to dedicate this one to the “CLEAN UP!” gang of Mumbai , those men in green, without whom this city would choke and suffocate to death…I salute them, they are one of the real Khatron Ke Khiladiiis! Do they need any more introductions?!? Oh, most definitely yes. Because we just don’t bother to notice these men working round the clock to clean the mess that they don’t create…Come on… I am talking about the CLEAN UP MUMBAI squad, those guys who immerse themselves into the filthy rotten stinky garbage, that comprises of all the possible variety in the world, ranging from wet rotten and decayed food items, packed with unbearable, beyond description “stink” that can suffocate us in just 5 secs (or may be less!) make us go fasting for days… because after that experience we would probably puke at even the sight of a single morsel, forget about ‘eating’ food! These men have got one of the toughest job-CELANING THE SHIT THAT WE CREATE and yes, we at our ‘ungrateful’ best!!! After all why should we be-it’s their B***DY job and probably they mustn’t be qualified for anything else!

THAT’S OUR ATTITUDE! We don’t even acknowledge their presence and like them there are loads of other people, who we take for granted and also go to the extent of belittling them-simply for what they do! Surely then, ‘Dignity of Labour’ is Greek to us! I mean I really fail to understand how can we be sooo ungrateful to people who work to make our lives simple and better? Just imagine, if there is no CLEAN UP squad, will you and I even think about getting into that garbage van to clean our own mess! Oh, most definitely NO, because we don’t even touch personal dustbins that are parked outside our respective houses/apartments-forget about this community service! So what if all that piled up garbage has been contributed by all of us, we would rather hire people and get this filthiest job done by them!!! What respect, after all we are they are getting paid for their job!!! THAT’S OUR APPROACH! And it’s suffocating, it’s disgraceful and it surely reflects that we don’t have any sense of respect for individuals/humans, forget about inculcating something called as ‘DIGNITY OF LABOUR’!

Imagine what the extent of their misery that drives them to take up a job of this nature…and they have to do it-to feed their families, to arrange two meals for themselves and yes they have to eat to survive- I really wonder how do they manage all this?!? They should be classified as working in one of the most hazardous environments and all thanks to us! We wouldn’t dirty our hands even in sorting the garbage at home-everything in one basket, cooked food, rotten vegetables, leftover, etc etc etc, why should we sort the dry and wet garbage ( Ideally we must do a thorough sorting of the household garbage)after all we have hired these men to do that for us! We are surely devoid of the basic civic sense and yes, hygiene to us is restricted to Dettol bottle and fancy face wash gel/cream!

If we cannot do our bit to be responsible citizens, if we just don’t have the ability to clean up our own mess/S**T, probably the least we could do is given these men their due-the respect and the recognition that they deserve for what they do everyday and still they haven’t forgotten to smile- CAN WE SMILE AT THEM TELLING THAT WE REALLY APRECIATE THEIR GUTS AND WE RECOGNIZE THEIR EFFORTS, CAN WE JUST SMILE TO SAY THAT MUMBAI SHINES-THANKS TO THEM!