Perception !!!

I had recently enrolled myself in the Art of Living Basics course recently. There they teach this yoga, some basic exercises to stretch your body and the pranayama and other breathing exercises to enhance your health and a little bit of discussion on some basic principles of day to life and how to handle situations. I was very very hestiant at first to attend this as I wasnt much of a person who would mingle with others well enough until I knew them well. And I knew this course would involve some inter personal exercises (courtesy : my mom and bro , who had done this course some years earlier)

In one of our classes, they said one thing which caught my attention considerably. They said that no human is really good or bad. It is always the way we perceive them makes them good or bad.

Hmm.... I always knew and believed that good or bad is relative to a person or a situation or a place or any other factor for that matter. I always used to say for e.g. that drinking alcohol in a hot country like India can be considered bad (for health and its effect on others) whereas in cold countries if we dont take something hot like the whiskey or any other such drinks, one might die. So what is bad here turns out to be a good one somewhere else. (hopefully my example isnt that flawed). So for a person who believed this their statement made me think a little more.

It is true isnt. Not all of the time the first impressions last. For e.g. we might not like a person at the first look or first talk. But as and when we get to know the person, and if the person turns out to be good, the perception about the person changes and we tend to see this person for who he/she is and not what he/she looks like. This might happen the other way round also. We might feel to not like the person once we get to know them better even though they made a very good first impression. So this means that we start perceiving this person differently once we know them better. We start to judge them by their actions and their reactions and also on how they respond to situations (Reaction is bad whereas responding is good, more about this later, we shouldnt be go off the track ;) ). So basically the person has been the same through out. It is just how we see them has changed.

This happened to me when I was staying in a ladies hostel when I was working in Bangalore. I am a Hindu and I do my prayers in the morning after my bath and I have a set of God photos and used to light a lamp and pray daily. There was this girl who had got converted to Christianity (no offense here to anyone and please note that I am not judging anyone for their religion here, am just telling you what I had been through) and who had problems with her room mates in other floors and at the end she landed up in my room (it was 6 bedded room) and at that time it was only me and her with one more roomy. She told me how she got converted and how she needed some time alone in the evening for her prayers. So I used to give the room to herself and went to watch TV at that time. She was quite cordial to me and I was wondering why she was moved from one room to another unnecessarily as I didnt find any problem with her. One day (I guess it was a Sat or Sun) myself and some others were watching an english movie when she joined us. And you know that any English movie would have some or the other scenes which might be objectionable to most of orthodox people out here in India ;) . She was thoroughly irritated and was complaining that it was very bad and she retired to our room. Later one day I was narrating the story of "Manichitrathazh" (malayalam psychic thriller) to my other room mate when she joined us and wanted to listen to the story as well. It had the elements of ghosts and other such things. She didnt say anything at that time, just listened to it. I was doing my P.G Diploma in Operations Management from IGNOU while working, so I used to study for my exams and prepare for my assignments also. One day she was complaining how people can study and get good marks after watching such movies (she meant the horror and the english movies). How can one really concentrate and get good marks inspite of all these. She was complaining that she was really disgusted and would pray to give good sense to those people. Well it isnt hard enough to really know to whom she was directing these. :D. I thought that she was a bit confused because she thought that by seeing english / horror movies or reading fiction (or horror) stories one she was really betraying God. It was evident that she needed help, but she didnt allow anyone to offer her too. She was always on her own everytime. Even though I didnt have a problem with her, I wasnt too close to her as well.

Then later a few B.Tech students joined our hostel for a couple of weeks until they finished our project. They had come on an afternoon and this girl was there in the hostel (I used to come back from work only by 7 pm). There were totally 5-6 girls so three were put up in our room. When I was back from office, I saw three new faces. I tried to introduce myself to them (as I always do to make them comfortable) and found that they didnt respond that well. So I left them as is and got on my work. Days went by. This girl was very friendly with these girls and she always told them that she was there to help them and she would never leave them. These girls seemed to believe in her very much. It was nice to see that at last she had some one to talk to, whom she wanted to talk to also. So I would always leave them and spent my time in T.V or with my other friends there.

One Sunday , when she had gone to Church for her regular mass, and I was watching TV having my breakfast, the aunty (she was the maid there but we called her aunty and she liked me a lot) who was cleaning our room came down hurrying and said that she didnt believe that this girl could do something so sinisterish and was on the top of her voice shouting and scolding her. We couldnt make heads or tails of it. And I was the one who was least bothered :)

She then came to me and said that this girl had told the other three girls in my room that I was a very bad person and that I see bad movies and that I do black magic (my prayers looked like black magic to her) and that if I was disturbed in sleep by any means (we had bunker bed and I had the lower portion) then I would get up and curse the girl sleeping on top of my bed. She had also told them that she would help them and that she would take the responsibility to safeguard them from me through her religion. She had taken two days off and had been with them the whole day preaching them (those girls were Hindus too). So these girls were very confused because I didnt look like that but they couldnt help but believe her too and their intellect didnt allow them to believe in her fully also. Also the other three girls in another room, found out that these three girls were very disturbed for almost a week and that they didnt concentrate properly in their project and when they were discussing the other three girls didnt find much sense. So they enquired aunty about me and if I really did black magic with my prayers etc etc.

You should see the kind of shock I had when I heard this. I didnt believe that these girls who are studying B.Tech could even believe such a thing as black magic, done in a hostel that too. And I was totally surprised in the way she had fabricated these things to them. These girls were almost 7-8 yrs younger to me. So I went to my room and talked to them. As soon as I went they were in tears and they asked me to forgive them. I was taken by surprise. They said that they believed what she said even though they had their doubts. God, what can I say. I just told them that if they had any doubts, it is better to get clarified rather than being there with fear in the hearts. That was definitely not the way to live in a hostel. We had a talk for half an hour and I got to know each of them well enough to be able to move freely with them and they in turn got to know me better.

After that I came again for the lunch and was waiting for this girl to come, to ask her why she did this to me (by now I realized why she had problems with other too. I had got the news from other roomies on why they didnt want her in their room, but I thought that as long as she didnt create any problem who am I to not ask her to be in my room). When she came and when she was summoned by the warden and as soon as she saw me she just burst out in anger and said "Oh, so she got her first is it. I was expecting this anytime. How can we be with such a bad soul in our room" etc etc.. She was again involving the other girls in my room too. So we called them and as soon as they came, they started scolding her on making such false accusations. She got more angry and she said that I have brain washed them and that there is no salvation for them and they are bound to suffer in life and she asked for another room and got a new room for herself.

It was dramatic Sunday. All I could do was cry for some time for what had been done. I was wondering how can she even perceive me like that when she was there with me for almost 3-4 months. It really hurt me and I wouldnt forget that for my life time. And I had never been harsh on her even once. I treated her like my sister even though I wasnt too close, and she knew it. So after this debacle, I stopped talking to her and we never crossed each others path (atleast she took care of that part).

Time went by and my anger / grudge or whatever-it-was on her slowly vanished. I thought that I could even forgive her for what she did. After all she was a confused person who lost the contact of her parents (because she got convereted against their wishes) and she was all alone and all she wanted someone to be for her and believe her. But after a month or so , I guess it might be more than that, she got in touch with her mother again and they had forgiven her and they had called her back (She wasnt in a good job either, she made enough to pay off the hostel fees and have little for her month only). There she was ready to vacate the hostel. The day she was about to vacate, she was standing on the way when I was going down to get my breakfast. As usual I saw her and just left. But I felt that she might want to say something to me. But I just ignored coz I didnt want to make any assumptions with her. But later after some time when I was going back to my room after breakfast she called me (to my surprise) and I looked at her and this is what she said " I know I have done too big a mistake to ask forgiveness from you, But wont you consider me your sister and forgive me for what I have done to you ? after all I am also young and confused. I am very sorry for the trouble I have caused you". I guess it relieved her of her ghosts. But it did relieve me of mine too. I just said its ok and wish her all the best for her future and left off.

This happened to me almost 7-8 yrs before but I still remember it so vividly, not because of the pain I felt or the hurt. It isnt too much of a pain because I could see that she was confused. But it was such a dramatic incident that I never thought that such a thing could ever happen in my life. I am not sure where she is right now and how she is. But I wish her good luck as always. There has been a few such dramatic incidents in my hostel life that really struck me too hard and this is one such incident.

She had perceived me differently first (may be I made a good impression first on her) but later she wasnt able to accept me for what I was and her perception changed and she tried to convey the same to others and ultimately it turned out that I became the bad person to a bunch of these girls , even though I had hardly talked or interacted with them, except for being in the same room. Well this might be one way of how people get branded as good or bad (by word of mouth :D) and they start perceiving them that way and finding faults in whatever they do or dont do.

I guess as Emerson said People only see what they are prepared to see.
And I end this entry with this.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. - Shakespeare.