Sympathy is one of the most sensitive and delicate of human virtues. It would not be too far wrong to say that it is one of those qualities that make human beings human.
I am not a specialist or scholar to enter into debate on whether sympathy is innate, instinctive or an acquired emotion! It is the capacity of the individual to reach out to share the joy and pain of others. It is innate.
I cannot help thinking that the quality of sympathy is also closely related to our imaginative capacity, for it is only when we enter imaginatively into the feelings and suffering and sorrows of another person, when we put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, as it were, that we respond to the situation with sympathy.
Let us pause to reconsider some of the words I have used to talk about sympathy: sensitive, innate, instinctive, emotional, imaginative – are these not attributes which we associate with women? Healing and helping come naturally to women, don’t they?
Today, women physicians and women doctors occupy a position in diverse areas like oncology, ophthalmology and radiology that men cannot really hope to match! Women’s attitudes, their emotional responses and their entire professional approaches enable them to offer a major alternative kind of treatment!
A sister said to me the other day, “Women for centuries have been told they have a particular place in society. It is for them to practise compassion, listen, understand and extend a helping hand and an understanding heart. But women need to be more self-sufficient and independent today. How can they go on empathising, living to listen to others and caring for them?”
I said to her, “It is not for the woman to take on the role of a silent sufferer and a burden bearer all the time! It is time for her to train men in the finer arts of understanding and compassion. If she doesn’t teach them, no one else will!”
In this, as in other matters, the responsibility we place on women is high! But this does not absolve the rest of us from emulating her example.
*March 8 is observed as an International Women’s Day!
Dada J P Vaswani was a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader
