Our condominium complex has provided all the residents with access cards to get in and out of our respective blocks. But most of the time, most of the residents do not carry these access cards and depend on either the security guards or the other residents to get in or get out.
Just before the lockdown, one of the days, while Bindu and I were about to get into our block using the access card, we noticed a young teenager waiting in the lounge for someone to open the door as she obviously didn’t know about the button next to the door which opens the gate from the inside. Seeing her waiting, I sort of dashed to open the door so that she can go out. The teenager just got out, with a smart phone in her hand, without even bothering to say ‘Thank you’. She walked out without even looking at us as if we had just done our duty, and it was expected of us to open the door for her.
Like this, many instances happen every day, when we extend a courtesy to people – holding the lift for someone to get in, waiting in the lift for others especially children and senior citizens to get out, holding the door while people get in and out, standing in a queue at the grocery store, in the Covid19 world keeping social distance ..…the list can be endless. Many times in these instances I find some people, behaving terribly, refusing to extend basic courtesies. Just a ‘Thank You’ would suffice or even a nod with a smile!
It is these very people who don’t extend the basic courtesies of life to others, who violate all the possible rules on and off the road, inside or outside their homes. And when their children watch this behavior, they follow suit assuming its the right behaviour ! Sadly we are, slowly, steadily and surely building a generation of citizens, without any values or civic sense. Dangerous but true.
Little things do matter!