I remembered something today, something that my grandpa told me after I came home with bruises in my sixth grade. Something that I read again online.
You see, I was bullied right before exams, by someone who’s now a mother of two and owner of a pretty famous restaurant in Calcutta. She kept pressing my neck trying to chock me and kept asking “why aren’t you dying?” You see, I had just started with taekwondo and perhaps I could have taken her down – but I kept thinking, is it necessary? What are the consequences? She can get hurt badly, I can get expelled, do I want to end up in juvie? She’s an idiot cause if I pass out she can be in trouble too. Technically she was applying lethal force, which means I had the right to defend. So I did what (thanks to having only boy cousins – trained in marshal arts – and being the youngest in the family then, and hence being used to them applying rear naked choke on me while fighting) what I learnt to do best: hold my breath, not fighting back and store my oxygen. As we were in the middle of the classroom I knew that this couldn’t last long till someone breaks us up by calling someone. And so it happened, a friend came by and broke us apart, calling her “insane.”
When I told my grandpa what happened he said: A harmless person is not a good person. It’s a meek person. A loud and boisterous person, is not dangerous or powerful. It is someone who has no respect. On the other hand, a good person is an extremely dangerous individual under total voluntary control. Voluntary control. Restraint. That’s what keeps peace. The capacity to with-hold, the capacity to remain objective even while facing extreme provocation, the capacity to not give-into anger. If people walk with a very dangerous person under voluntary control, they are subconsciously aware of it. A good person is someone whose presence makes everyone watch their step.
That is a wisdom I will pass on to my kids.
ANTHROPOLOGY OF LOVE 