Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Shades

Society is based on values, rules and assumptions. Like any system, society uses these tenets to continue functioning.
Values which tell us whats is right, rules which make us do the right thing and the assumption that the previous two have been formulated keeping in mind the best interests of society and the individual, the assumption being the most significant of the three.
As children we are trained to follow them and hence, fit into society. There is no ambiguity. There is right and there is wrong.
If only it was this simple. Unfortunately there is more. Unfortunately there is that enigmatic 'Grey'.
The 'grey', is not wrong, but does that make it right? The line was clear, till we learnt to push and contort it, till we learnt to go over it, without stepping over it.
Would you stop doing something 'grey', if it gave you great joy and happiness, yet did not do any immediate tangible harm, if it only created an atmosphere congenial for the 'black'? How far would you push the line? Would you keep doing it till rebuked?
The kid in us never would. But somewhere along the line, the kid grew up. The kid grew up the moment he realized, black and white are just shades of grey.

4 comments:

Suprita said...

"The kid grew up the moment he realized, black and white are just shades of grey."

:) Beautiful.

I remember having a chapter on Jawaharlal's letter to Indira. In that he said something like, "never do anything you'd want to keep secret from others." That's probably when you know you're in the darker shades of Grey.

Manjunath Shevgoor said...

Hmmm... I guess thats a powerful indicator that one is approaching the darker areas. Problem is a darker shade is still not always black....

Piyush Sethia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Piyush Sethia said...

well said.. And Suprita, I guess the line is taken from "Letters from a father to his daughter", right???