The Kindly Stranger To Your Rescue
I believe in kindness. Well, you may retort, who doesn't? But I believe in it rather as religious people believe in God. I think it is the answer to almost all our problems: from the miseries of divorce to nuclear proliferation. If humanity learnt to gauge its every action by the simple criterion of kindnessalways to ask if it is, on balance, the kindest thing to do? the world would be much happier... kindness offers us an uncomplicated morality, liberated from every species of mumbojumbo, the spells of witch doctors or the theology of professors. The most striking manifestation of kindness is the kindness of strangers... The Kindly Stranger is related to the Righteous Gentile, the generic figure of Jewish tradition who demonstrates that human understanding transcends even the grandest convictions of organised religion. The Righteous Gentile is, by definition, an outsider, or he would be just another Righteous Jew: and the Kindly Stranger is an outsider, too, or he would not be a stranger. The most celebrated of all the company was the original Good Samaritan, who came to the rescue of a mugged wayfarer on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho... Maybe strangers feel compelled to help us just because they have nothing to do with us, and are reasonably sure they're never going to set eyes on us again. They are simply sorry for us, and pity can be the most easily satisfied of emotions- the more outlandish and lonely the sufferer is, the easier to satisfy it... It can be more difficult to be kind to friends than to strangers. Boredom, irritation, insight, disillusion, the broadening of experience, the sharpening of prejudices - all mean that sympathy can be hardest to cherish when you are dealing with the one you know the best, even the one you love the best. By definition the Kindly Stranger must be alfen to his beneficiary, but I have a disturbing feeling that the Kindly Friend, the Kindly Neighbour, the Kindly Relative or the Kindly Spouse might be a worthier subject of parable... Kindness is really, so to speak, an absolute, which cannot be graded; but its most symbolical expression is the sudden, unpremeditated act of sympathy, offered without hope of reward to an unknown and perhaps unappealing soul in distress -to a foreigner, a truculent vagrant, an unwashed backpacker or a cat... When, years ago, I was succoured in a bout of sickness by a Sherpa family in eastern Nepal, it was almost as though I was befriended by aliens. Few Europeans, if any, had ever been to their village in those days, and the smoky house in which I lay flickered mysteriously with butter candles around golden images, while women moved shadowily about, speaking in unknown tongues, and sometimes bringing me victuals from nowhere. The kind- ness of this fa mily of strangers, though, was utter, and the fact that I didn't even know the local words for 'thank you' made the experience all the more allegorical. It had a profound effect on me-I can still recapture the exact emotions I felt then, half a century later and fortunately kindness is catching. Nobody is kind all the time, but in the illimitable order of all things, in my view, every little bit helps. 'Go, and do thou likewise', Jesus told his interlocutor at the end of the Good Samaritan parable, and perhaps if the charity of a stranger has saved us from ignominy far away, we are likely to be a little less testy ourselves when we emerge ill-tempered from a Himalayan fever. (With permission from Lonely Planet: 'The Kindnes of Strangers: Travellers Tales of Trouble & Salvatior Around the Globe')
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Jan Morris personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Jan Morris and Speaking Tree and Times of India
The Kindly Stranger To Your Rescue
I believe in kindness. Well, you may retort, who doesn't? But I believe in it rather as religious people believe in God. I think it is the answer to almost all our problems: from the miseries of divorce to nuclear proliferation. If humanity learnt to gauge its every action by the simple criterion of kindnessalways to ask if it is, on balance, the kindest thing to do? the world would be much happier... kindness offers us an uncomplicated morality, liberated from every species of mumbojumbo, the spells of witch doctors or the theology of professors. The most striking manifestation of kindness is the kindness of strangers... The Kindly Stranger is related to the Righteous Gentile, the generic figure of Jewish tradition who demonstrates that human understanding transcends even the grandest convictions of organised religion. The Righteous Gentile is, by definition, an outsider, or he would be just another Righteous Jew: and the Kindly Stranger is an outsider, too, or he would not be a stranger. The most celebrated of all the company was the original Good Samaritan, who came to the rescue of a mugged wayfarer on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho... Maybe strangers feel compelled to help us just because they have nothing to do with us, and are reasonably sure they're never going to set eyes on us again. They are simply sorry for us, and pity can be the most easily satisfied of emotions- the more outlandish and lonely the sufferer is, the easier to satisfy it... It can be more difficult to be kind to friends than to strangers. Boredom, irritation, insight, disillusion, the broadening of experience, the sharpening of prejudices - all mean that sympathy can be hardest to cherish when you are dealing with the one you know the best, even the one you love the best. By definition the Kindly Stranger must be alfen to his beneficiary, but I have a disturbing feeling that the Kindly Friend, the Kindly Neighbour, the Kindly Relative or the Kindly Spouse might be a worthier subject of parable... Kindness is really, so to speak, an absolute, which cannot be graded; but its most symbolical expression is the sudden, unpremeditated act of sympathy, offered without hope of reward to an unknown and perhaps unappealing soul in distress -to a foreigner, a truculent vagrant, an unwashed backpacker or a cat... When, years ago, I was succoured in a bout of sickness by a Sherpa family in eastern Nepal, it was almost as though I was befriended by aliens. Few Europeans, if any, had ever been to their village in those days, and the smoky house in which I lay flickered mysteriously with butter candles around golden images, while women moved shadowily about, speaking in unknown tongues, and sometimes bringing me victuals from nowhere. The kind- ness of this fa mily of strangers, though, was utter, and the fact that I didn't even know the local words for 'thank you' made the experience all the more allegorical. It had a profound effect on me-I can still recapture the exact emotions I felt then, half a century later and fortunately kindness is catching. Nobody is kind all the time, but in the illimitable order of all things, in my view, every little bit helps. 'Go, and do thou likewise', Jesus told his interlocutor at the end of the Good Samaritan parable, and perhaps if the charity of a stranger has saved us from ignominy far away, we are likely to be a little less testy ourselves when we emerge ill-tempered from a Himalayan fever. (With permission from Lonely Planet: 'The Kindnes of Strangers: Travellers Tales of Trouble & Salvatior Around the Globe')
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Jan Morris personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Jan Morris and Speaking Tree and Times of India