Our slave mentality

Many years ago, a friend of mine told me a true story narrated to him by his elders, which permanently printed in my memory. He said, during the heydays of the British Raj, a Lot Sahib wanted to kiss his wife on the veranda of his bungalow. She pushed him away pointing at the presence of nearby servants. Lot Sahib laughed and pointed his finger at a dog, a few cows and chickens in the foreground, and asked her whether she would have pushed him away in front of those animals? Then without waiting for a reply he carried on “we are the masters of these people, who cares if they are watching us”

One of the servants who understood English started to smile. The one next to him asked him why was he smiling. He narrated what Lot Sahib told Ma'am Sahiba. He also started smiling. For them it was a joke but in reality it showed their salve mentality. Our nation has inherited that mentality.

Let us be grateful to the US and other Donor countries for feeding us. So what if they humiliate us now and again. Before objecting to their attitudes or rejecting their assistance we have to come out of our slave mentality and learn how to live like free souls. In the meantime, while we are in that mode; let us come to terms with our humiliation, enjoy our slave mentality and. smile at our dead souls, just like those servants many decades ago at the bungalow of Lot Sahib.

 Dr Ghayur Ayub