Thursday, December 25, 2008

Value of Life

100 people die in an overturned bus in rural parts of a country of billion people… a miniscule percentage of the total population disappears.
100 employees die in a company of 1000 … 10% of the human resource of the company gets wiped out in one shot.
Is one loss more statistically significant than the other? 100 people could not affect the economy or the future of a country but losing 10% of employees in one company could economically debilitate the company.

But then, if the 100 people who died in the crash included all the key government officials and the business leaders… then, the entire country could come to a grinding halt.
And if the 100 employees were on the manufacturing floor, who could be easily replaced, it need not affect the overall health of the company.

And if one of the individuals who died in either of the scenarios was your loved one – your child, parent, spouse or friend, all best are off. In your universe of one, life could come tumbling down. So, how do we determine the value of life? Is it solely based on the economic implication or is it based on who is telling the story? These questions came up more crisply to me during a conversation with a young politician’s staff in Delhi.

Recently, India has been in the news because of the terrorist attacks on two of the most exclusive hotels in Mumbai. Wealthy and accomplished individuals from around the world were trapped in the hotels for over two days wondering if they would make it alive. There were heart breaking stories of couples separating so that the children would have at least one parent who survives the attack, individuals who lay motionless under dead bodies for over six hours later rescued by commandos, policemen and dedicated hotel staff losing their lives to get their guests to safety – the stories blared at us from the radio, TV, print and we all wept in dismay and despair. As we got over the sorrow and looked at the column inches of news coverage, a sad pattern emerged. And this is regarding what gets covered in the news.

The terrorists had dinner at Leopold café, paid their bill, walked up to the exit of the small, crowded café, turned around and opened fire. They walked into a crowded local train station and opened fire on innocent passengers. There is hardly any mention of the stories of the individuals who died in these places. Obviously economic worth of an individual places a higher value on someone’s life. Many individuals are outraged at the media for sensational journalism and for not covering the lives of the common man. Before I join that group and point fingers, I thought that I had to examine deeply what I feel and how I determine the value of life.

The reason that the media and consumers of media focused on the incidents at Taj or Oberoi is that we RELATE better to that situation. We ate at those places, stayed in those rooms and it could have been any one of us laying under the dead bodies praying for survival. We can not relate to taking a local train at 9pm at night or taking a bus in a rural area. The people watching the news and giving the English news are from the elite class that can only relate to their world. And if we do not come from that world, we quickly become part of that crowd the moment we attain some celebrity status in the media world. And how much do we really spend to know about any life that exists outside our sphere of family and friends.

How many people take the time to find out the story of the driver or the maid, who spends the best part of their life taking care of us? I have been visiting Mumbai for the last 10 years on a consistent basis and I rent the car from the same agency and have the same driver taking care of me. He knows all my friends’ homes, my business meeting locations and even my favorite restaurants. After this introspection on “value of life”, I had to admit in shame that I did not know a single detail about him – even simple facts like where does he live? How long does it take him to get home after I let him go at midnight and before he needs to show up to take me to a 7am meeting? In our Bangalore apartment, our maid does not show up at times and I fume at the unreliability of hired help in India. I recently found out that her husband beats her and the days that she does not show up are those days when she simply could not get out of bed. And worse, she has been keeping my home clean with a smile after being kicked around by her husband a few hours prior to showing up at my doorstep.

I am appalled at the insensitivity that has built within me. Granted … In a country like India, I would go mad if I paid attention to every beggar who knocks at my car window, donate to every cause that demands attention. But, it does not cost me to “feel” something. Does it? At some point in our lives, we decided on a hierarchy of value of life. Personal relationship, professional success, economical impact, nationality, religion – in some minor change of order determines the value of life for each of us. The story tellers feed what the consumers want. And all of us are living in this bubble of value judgment. And the sad part is that somewhere there is a story happening of ordinary people being subject to injustices, subject to brain washing, getting angry at our apathy and by the time they hit our news, it’s too late. We have created a person who could have a meal and turn around to shoot the same person who served him without batting an eyelid. Is this any worse than us not caring about the people that serve us and surround us?

I realized that before I point a finger and shudder at the cruelty of that terrorist, I have to make amends to the blindness that I developed for lives that lay outside my limited life. Just as I set aside time to meditate or work out or complete assignments, I decided that I should set aside a few minutes every day to find the value for someone’s life who is completely outside my circle of friends. May be if I exercise this part of my brain regularly, I would be more sensitive about the decisions I would make – be it the story that I choose to tell to influence the world around me or the business decisions that I need to make that could have far reaching impact.

Monday, September 25, 2006

A New Venture

This is a new beginning to share my thoughts on people, places and thoughts that inspire me.