Child

Smart Shoes and the Child

A person was leading an aged blind man by hand with a walking pace which was faster than the latter could conveniently keep up with. As the person was walking by the side of the blind man, he was not pulling but seen pushing the handicapped for- ward by his hand to make him maintain the fast pace together. It was apparent that either both were in a hurry for their destination or the person was undertaking the assignment not much to his liking.

The signs were that the person saw himself humbled by the assignment. It was strange that as the person walked on with the blind man, he produced sharp tapping noise with the hard tread of his shoes against the pavement. All this was a curious spectacle in the street. It appeared that the ostentatiously haughty walking style of the person was an, attempt to counter his embarrassment of the assignment. It perhaps meant to convey to other pedestrians in the street that he was different from the companion or better placed than him. He may have even wanted to avoid to reveal that the hand capped was his father. ;

In a society where almost all walk softly in the streets, we do come across some people, though few, who want to attract attention to themselves or have the feel of being firmer on the ground with the chest out by the sharp noise of their footsteps. Such persons are mostly well dressed and not advanced in age. The foot-steps serve to manifest and satisfy a pride if not arrogance.

Verses Are Enlightening.

The Qur'an is not silent on this aspect of pride. The following pertinent verses are:

enlightening: "And do not walk about in the land exultingly, for you cannot cut through the earth nor reach the mountains in height. All this -the evil of it -is hateful in the sight of your Lord" (17:37, 38); " nor go about in the land exulting over much; surely Allah does not love any self-conceited boaster. " (31 :18)

In my schooling days I knew of a certain family which did not permit their children to use shoes which produced sharp noise while walking though normally such shoes were not Worn; and I did not know the reason for it then. If it does somehow give the feel of superiority over others in the street who walk softly and humbly, then let us prevent Our children from cultivating the taste for such a feel. Such a false pride can grow roots and branch out into other spheres or traits.

If children when adults have to lead or escort their aged parents who happen to be needing such an assistance, the parents would want them to do so with the pride and the feel of goodness for the parents from the beats of the heart and not grudgingly with the pride for themselves from the beats of the regimental (soldier-Iike) foot- steps.

Childhood Trauma

The son aged seven was among the small group of relatives. friends and work-colleagues from a small local community who clustered around the grave. He was watching as the corpse of his father in a white shroud visible through the gaps between the wooden planks disappeared from view by the growing pile of soil. Except for one dim bulb light temporarily hung from a tree branch near the burial place, the cemetery was engulfed in darkness.

The young father was in his usual jovial spirit of a hurry for the work-place that morning when the boy bade Khuda Hafiz to him to catch the school bus which was to arrive any moment. That was the last time that he saw the father alive. That death in the family and the burial was the first experience of the boy in his life.

For the first time, he 'found' how heartless the relatives and friends of his father were. They took away 'his father' in a hurry to bury him and that too with well-rehearsed rituals and as promptly they dispersed, leaving him behind helpless in that awful and dark cemetery while his mother was wailing uncontrollably in protestation back at home. All this was as if they all had set themselves ready in advance for him to collapse and lay dead at the work-place.

Cold And Cruel.

The boy at that tender age saw life as deceitful and betrayer. the community cold and cruel, and the world therefore bitter and wicked. He would rather keep his feelings of bitterness against the world to himself than convey them to his young widowed mother only to add to her agony of grief. Perhaps the mother too was part of all the wickedness of the community seeing her trying to make him resign to the sudden disappearance of his father.

The boy would feel anger well up inside him at the solace being offered to him by the relatives because he thought them to be cynic or hypocrites having seen their enthusiasm in the burial. He avoided contacts. He prolonged his absence in the school. The presence of female visitors at home gave him the pretext of a somber recluse in his room.

The scenes of the burial would flash vividly to torment him. The innocent scene of the old person shifting his thick reading glasses back up to the nose-bridge again and again as he went on with his hoarse recitation of the burial "talqeen" kept coming back to his mind again and again. He did not want to wipe the scenes off his mind because by doing so he would also be wiping off his bitterness which he did not want to.

All the indications were that the child has developed not depression or grief -but worse -a typical trauma, which when originating in childhood. is difficult to erase from one's mind completely even after the reality of this life becomes clear. It always keeps haunting in the adult life. It obscures the vision of the goodness of many aspects of, this world.

It rebels at the thought of death being mercy. It becomes less easy to resign to the reality of this world which is attendant with the vicissitudes of life some of which are bitter and have to be accepted as normal. The indications of a trauma vary from person to person who is afflicted according to the degrees of the stress and the circumstances which cause it.

Death Is Mercy.

It is essential for the parents to realise that death can visit anyone of them suddenly and much sooner while their child may not have been prepared by them in advance about the reality of this world. He has to be made to understand and accept that this mortal life is a blessing only because it offers the soul an exit in the form of death to an eternal blissful life; hence death is mercy to be awaited and embraced. Death as a subject should not be taboo for discussion with the children in the family. What a moving saying of the holy Prophet in which he points out that death itself is an effective preaching (for those living.)

Apart from the discussion. the most effective preparation is to arrange for the child to have his first experience of witnessing the gusal (body washing), kafan (shrouding) and dafan (burial) of a member of the community, not closely related, under agreeable circumstances while the father is with him explaining the significance of the series of rituals.

Hadhrat Ali (a.s) has also said: "People are the enemy of what they do not know". No wonder that the boy thought the world which is characterised by the death of near and dear ones is enemy because he was not let to know about death -as being an avenue of freedom for the soul from the interim and constrained mortal life to the eternal blissful life.

Slip of Expletives in Conversation - As a Habit

An agent who was supplying certain brands of goods on credit to his clients based in the interior towns during the colonial rule found that he could no longer do so. The company which was the sole importer of the popular brands had cancelled the arrangement for sales on credit to the agent.

The reason was a misunderstanding with the clerical staff of the company for which the agent was not to blame. The Sales Manager was a son of the Managing Director of the family-company. He would not see the agent who was anxious to clear the misunderstanding.

There was a distinct fear that the agent would lose his clients to other agents. He therefore confided his problem to a friend with a request that the friend talks to the Manager.

As the friend did not know the Manager personally, he first made some discreet inquiries about him. He learnt that the Manager was a graduate, made decisions on behalf of the Managing Director and was keeping extremely busy during the office hours. He often referred his visitors whom he did not know to his subordinates. A call at his residence after the dinnertime was likely to result in an opportunity of a meeting with him. It did.

Apologetic Approach.

The pompous set up of the lounge where the agent and his friend were seated added to the already intimidating atmosphere under which they were to explain the misunderstanding. Both had decided earlier that their approach to the subject would be meek and apologetic.

The formal introduction was interrupted by a telephone call to the Manager, followed by one more after a short interval. It was obvious that one call was of a business nature involving some hard bargaining and the other from a friend enthusing the Manager in a friendly jovial conversation. However, on both occasions of the telephone conversation, the language of the Manager was punctuated now and then by the slip of expletives (foul words) from his mouth obviously as a habit -apparently without his being even aware of the slip.

Encounter And Not Entreaty. .

Suddenly and strangely enough, the haunting effect of the previous intimidation on the friend disappeared. He gained a sense of superiority. Encounter instead of entreaty became the impulsive key to the opening of the talk by the friend when they came down to it.

The weaknesses of the staff in the Sales Department were pointed out to the Manager without fear. All this was said firmly, however in a language which was decent and respectful when it came to choice of words, in contrast to the language used by the Manager in his telephones conversation. The encounter paid off through the sense of superiority.

The habit of uncontrollable slips of expletives is a liability. A host of such a loathsome habit can never be also a host of a refined and polished or a commanding personality' however educated or rich or both he may be. Such persons are seen small.

This habit begins either in childhood at home by the child seeing his father deeply smirched in a similar habit or through his bad company of friends in the school or sports ground while the parents fail to nip it in the bud when it begins to show up at home. Equally Worse.

There is also a culture, equally worse, of a liberal use of slang words or phrases I which wrongly appear to be figurative. They are in common use without the awareness that they can also convey obscene meanings.

Children when adult will be judged also not by who or whose sons they are but by their habitual language. However, those who drop expletives by an uncontrollable habit as they speak are not worthy of even being judged. They fare poorly in a society where the road to recognition, credibility, matrimony and trust is paved with ethics. A respectable language is part of ethics. :

c ,~. Watch a disorganised group of boys playing at an open space in a residential area I during a weekend or a school holiday. Often a quarrel erupts in the Course of the rivalry in a sports game. Note that while almost all would shout at one another in heated arguments, only a few would be seen dragging the arguments later into an exchange of a foul language if the quarrel remained unresolved and the rest would begin only to look on in silence with some embarrassment. They are different. They are culturally not orphaned.

Now if the difference seen in the example of the behaviour among the boys is bad, it will be much worse if the behaviour is allowed to take roots as the boys grow up as adults. There will always be a price for the lack of a polished personality however high their station of life. The price is bigger if the station of life is low.