Standing up to one's beliefs

Some years ago a friend of mine returned from an offical trip to US. He wanted to settle accounts of the trip with the company. The lady handling bills made him an offer. "Submit false inflated bills, and we'll split the extra amount". She made this offer to every employee and most of them probably accepted it, some with hesitation and some with glee. A person like me would politely declined it. But Amit Patil doesn't belong to any of these categories. He reported the matter to the company. Not that the company wasn't aware of what was going on. But everyone turned a blind eye to it. She was an influencial person and had good relationship with the CEO of the company. Nobody wanted to offend her. There was lot of pressure on Amit to back off. But he didn't. He pursued the matter and kept escalated the matter up to highest authorities in the company. It bore fruit. Because of his persistence, the company had to take action against the corrupt lady.

Later Amit explained to me, "I had to do it. I believed it was wrong. If I had not pursued the matter I would have fallen in my own eyes. I had to do it for my own sake if not for the company (or society or country)". How to say No, when you don't want to say Yes professes the same philosophy. Every time you don't stand up to what you believe in, you lower your self-esteem. I did exactly that today. I had to do something that was not pleasant, but I believed it was the right thing to do. And I failed to do it.

These days I frequently get BEST's a/c bus between Kanjur Marg and SEEPZ. Except at peak hours the bus is almost empty. At 3 p.m. today there were few people in the bus. There were two teenagers, taking cover on the last seat of the bus and kissing. This was the second time I had spotted them. I wanted to walk up to them and tell them politely, in a soft tone, that what they were doing wasn't good for them. I kept debating in my mind whether or not I should do that. My consciense told me that I should offer this elder brotherly advice, irrespective of how they react. But like the rest of crowd, I just ignored them and got down when the bus reached my stop. It was laziness or lack of courage or lack of sincerity. Or may be a combination of the three and something more. I don't know exactly why I didn't do it.

I felt bad. I know they will never cross my path again, because I am going to Bangalore tonight and won't be coming back soon. My good words may have made some better change in the lives to two young individuals. But I didn't have the courage to stand up to my beliefs. I ignored the dictates of my conscience. I was weak. My temerity has harmed me as much as my society. I want to become stronger than this.