Ethical dilemmas

I am doing a course in philosophy but I won’t go as far as defining ethics and then deal with the subject like a teacher. I think everyone of us has a sense of what ethics are? I believe that ethics of each and every individual depend upon his upbringing and the times in which he lives. There are exceptional people who break the boundaries of time and bring new ideas to our domains.

Capital punishment is something which explains this very easily. Its not even 200 years when capital punishment used to be a public highlight event in Europe and people used to come and enjoy the same. Today the things are totally different. EU has already banned capital punishment (as far as I know) and many more countries have followed the lead. As we progress the definition of ethics also becomes more holistic. Now a day we talk about corporate ethics and environmental ethics too.

There are lots of sayings that are accumulations of experiences of our ancestor’s, which help in resolving such complex ethical dilemmas that we face during our everyday lives.

The ones I can remember right now are:

“Ghoda ghas se dosti karega, to khayega kya”

“Be more concerned with you character than with your reputation, because character is what really you are, while reputation is merely what others think you are.”

So everyone of us is supposed to behave in a manner that is ethical. But does every situation have a single answer!!! If every situation had a single answer than the topic itself would have become irrelevant and usage of word ‘dilemma’ would be out of place. But I don’t think that is the case.

To come back to the ground level realities from this entire professor like lecture I am going to talk about the issues and incidences which forced me to this post.

A well to do middle class family in India can afford only sleeper class train journey, which I have to undertake at least four times in an year to and fro my home town.

Not all are lucky enough to have a confirmed ticket and hence a birth to sleep in the night. “To phir raat mein farsh par sona hee akela sahara hota hai”. I also have had to travel with a waiting ticket 2-3 times, and that is when I realized the problem of traveling that way. This time when I was coming back after enjoying my HOLI holidays, I had a confirmed ticket and only a few people were their without the same. Since I am a thin guy, and luckily or unluckily I had a lower birth. There was some space on the corner of birth which a black gentleman wearing clean white kurta payjama, utilized with his butt touching my feet. For me to sleep in a train is difficult, and mine was the birth nearest to gate so it was always buzzing with activity for the reasons all of us don’t have much control. I was still in dilemma whether to tell this gentle man to leave and suddenly a boy who was playing with his newest nokia mobile for quite some time can and sat on my birth on the top side just below my face.

I was facing butts and now 4 of them. Those butts were less important than the ifs and buts going on in my mind. I wasn’t able to sleep in their presence. And I hadn’t paid railways even a single penny more than them to deserve the birth. Ultimaltely I said to the boy,

“Boss yahan par nahin ho payega, koi aur seat dhoondh lo”

And after some time to the gentleman too

“uncle yahan par mujhe problem ho rahe hai”

Uncle said, “Problem to kisey nahin hoti yaar”, but he left.

But my dilemma still remains unresolved, should I have done that or not? I have a few more which are more serious ones lets see when i get to write about them

ak