How to put value on human life ?!

Few blogs back this blogger expressed shock over callousness of some people in Media. As an unfortunate man gasped for his last breathes the scoundrels were busy shooting his dying moments for their audience. What kind of awareness it has created among the channel surfing coach potatoes is not very clear but yes we have come one step closer to competence, I am told it did cause a blip in TRP. Kevin Carter was a man whose conscience he couldn’t shrug off but human species have become sturdier since, particularly the saviors in Indian Media.

This happening has kept me thinking for sometime, it has definitely shocked me, innate goodness of people is what one banks on. Death can happen anytime that means we all live on the fringe and someone like me lives a step closer. A wrong move and its over, even a broken bone or illness is severe setback- it puts significant pressure on day to day living and earning. One is always aware of this reality (also I have seen many people around me vanishing; it nearly consumed me at one point). Last 15 odd years I seemed to have had a terrific streak of luck, and did put myself in all kinds of situation (in earlier days quite reckless too), many a times escaped by a whisker or few scratches. It does allow a perspective on life that is very stark. As it gets into your system I guess it gives more clarity (it might surprise people but stress actually slows down situations one face!!). It also makes one understand how precious life is and sheer beauty of surrounding despite problems and squalor one sees. Emily Dickinson had these lines:

Death sets a thing significant
The eye has hurried by

She remains my most favorite poet, long back I used to carry her book of poems while traveling. These lines from another poem of her

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

Amazing lines these.

With market gaining predominance in last few years everything seems to be having commercial-monetary value. So let’s assume if the man was saved by the people in Media, now that is a big assumption since cost-benefit analysis doesn’t really favor such a decision….it is a TRP busting breaking story with a terrific visual. So I guess we have to take another example: let us assume any one of you blogger’s life was saved by someone, how will you repay back??

How can you put value on your own life??. Or will you think in terms of person who saved you and decide the price keeping his socio-economic conditions in mind, that is an easier option since it takes the focus away from oneself!!. And suppose the person refuse to accept the rewards which is what happens in most cases in India, what will you do??. I recall many years back I was stuck in a cheap hotel and bandh was called, shutters were down and I was stranded with half a bottle of water. Not that I cannot go without food for a day or so, I have done that few times, people who were staying in the next room offered some food and my insistence on giving money was resisted. How will you deal with such situation?.

There is a Short Story by British writer E.M. Forster “The Rock” that I read few years back that deals with such a situation. The protagonist was saved from drowning by three people…. “…He kept saying ‘I don’t know what to do. I can’t think. I shall come to you again’. And they replied, ‘oh that’ll be all right sir.’ You can imagine the scene, and it was not till the evening that I realized his difficulty. How much will you give for your life?”. The next few days our man spends in thinking how much to give, later how much they want! Finally he comes with a decision “For a time he was merely interested. He was amused at the problem, and the sensations it aroused in him. But at last he only cared for the solution. He found it one evening in this little room, when the sunset more glorious than today’s was flaming under the wych-elm. He asked me, as I asked you, what such things are worth, and gave the answer: ‘Nothing; and nothing is the reward to the man who saved me.’…. ‘…for the gift of nothing shall be that I have in the world’. The story though takes a turn from this lofty thinking and our man sold everything he had and gives the money to his rescuers. Then he does the unexpected he “… went down to that village penniless and asked for charity from his rescuers”. What happened next is what bloggers will have to read and find out!!. It is an amazing Short Story.

Trivia: E.M. Forster’s famous work is Passage to India that was made into a movie (David Lean), Naipaul though don’t have nice words. The title Passage to India is taken from Walt Whitman’s poem on the occasion of opening up of Suez canal!!. Though Forster had written some brilliant work of fiction his focus in his later days were essays: "Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend."

More we watch the ecstatic media more we tend to agree with the above thoughts of Forster. It is theater of absurd, 'not nearly as alert as they pretend'.