Two school kids are fighting – having a hard, rough-and-tumble scrap. Their peers look on in a circle that quickly forms around the scrapping kids. In moments, it becomes clear that one of the scrapping kids is having a very tough time. He’s grossly overpowered, receiving blows he can’t dodge or bear, and is pinned down in an inescapable wrench hold.
Within seconds he finds it difficult to breathe, and with no respite forthcoming, he imagines himself in ‘the final clasp of death’. In his mind he’s screaming desperately for someone to help end his misery.
Thankfully, a teacher emerges on the scene and stops the fight, and the weaker boy feels he’s got a new lease of life. But he’s terribly embarrassed at having been shamed thus. The incident will most likely scar his mental roadmap for the rest of his life.
This is what someone who is caught in such tormenting situations experiences, without exception.
The bully, in his immaturity, loudly celebrates his triumph. But only few can spot his misplaced notions of achievement. And also that such bullies, for their own and for society’s sake, are in serious need of mental reform. One can only hope that he will realize soon the repercussions of his ungainful act and mend himself.
In a less aggressive example, a kid is persuaded to take a shower. When the cold water first hits him he is stunned and catches his breath. Adults experience this too. It causes quite a jolt, and if the kid is small and his mom is the one bathing him, he’ll cling to her the moment he chokes from shock.
Every time someone is rendered helpless, especially physically, he feels stifled and asphyxiated. If he’s not relieved quickly, it leads to manifestation of an alarming death-approaching like sensation. The victim yearns for rescue, and if it isn’t forthcoming, then he gives up and braces for the worst.
Gory scenes of senseless violence on various media – gashes, bruises, beatings, torture, tend to desensitize viewers to the intense trauma that victims actually suffer. Put yourself in their place. Then remember the times you cut your finger with a blade or knife, and balked at the quick dripping of blood. And that time when a sharp, jagged piece of masala-slathered bone slipped as you struggled with non-veg food? (Which was sheer agony; the masala really stung your nerves and blood when it entered the cut). Remember how monumental a minute foreign body in your eye or a tiny thorn in your flesh feels? Remember how your toothache seems more catastrophic than thousands killed in a distant earthquake or tsunami?
Then recall the number of times you have not sensed or imagined the pain of a hapless victim of violence. Recall also some more instances of your own inconveniences. Like a sudden hard fall, or the shocking scald from sitting on the seat of a hot two-wheeler that’s been standing awhile in 44°C of the scorching summer sun. Remember how such shocks almost caused you to lose control of your bladder, or even sphincter?
If in moments where some helpless victim is suffering trauma, we feel his pain, then our innate humane instinct itself would prod us to intervene and bring an immediate halt to the predicament.
Carry empathy on your sleeves. It’s worth it if it awakens our humaneness.
Films and TV serials show things like ending one’s life by poisoning or by setting oneself aflame as just a technical step in a story. They ignore to also show how much pain is involved in burns, or when the poison ravages the body. It could even be hours of torturous suffering before death eventually arrives. This omission makes many suicidal minds oblivious of the gargantuan suffering involved before their desired goal is achieved. So they wrongly believe that dying by suicide is as simple as switching off the switch to your life. But it isn’t so.
A better awareness of the agony involved in the process of self-inflicted unnatural death would most definitely ward off many potential suicides. In today’s sensitive environment especially, society would be better served by film and serial makers who convey the suffering of suicide too, whenever such a script is written. Just the seemingly nonchalant mention of it all is enough.
The next time you witness someone being bullied, battered or tortured, do empathize. Put yourself in the victim’s place; imagine his pain. Don’t just watch on like a curious dimwit. Intervene. Stop the torment and trauma of the hapless victim. The world will be the better for it, and you’ll feel proud of yourself.