IF YOU WANT RESPECT FROM SOMEONE YOU MUST TREAT THAT PERSON LIKE DIRT

IF YOU WANT RESPECT FROM SOMEONE YOU MUST TREAT THAT PERSON LIKE DIRT

IF YOU KICK ME I WILL LICK YOU but IF YOU LICK ME I WILL KICK YOU

“If You Want Respect From Someone You Must Treat That Person Like Dirt”. 

Believe it or not, this is the startling lesson I have learnt from my personal experience and I am yet to recover from my state of disbelief. Let me tell you about it.

Exactly three months ago, my 78 year old widowed mother had a serious accident involving multiple fractures and injuries. She was in a critical condition when I rushed her to hospital. My wife rushed to the hospital from work. My mother underwent multiple surgeries and was hospitalized for around 15 days and was in a bedridden condition. During her stay in hospital my wife was constantly at her bedside, day and night, caring for her, even cleaning her defecating pots and urine pans. Even after my mother was discharged from hospital she continued to be bedridden and my wife nursed her with dedication and selfless devotion. For over two months our lives had turned topsy-turvy – we had to lock up our house, keep taking off from work, send my daughter to my in-laws’ place, and even when my seafarer son arrived on a month’s leave, we could not properly spend time with him. All members of my family accepted the situation good-naturedly.

My sister was on a holiday abroad when the mishap took place. She was informed of the seriousness of the accident. However, she did not cut short her visit and return immediately. In fact, she was thinking of extending her stay when someone put some sense into her head and she returned to India as per schedule almost a week after the accident, by which time two major surgeries were over, and the stress, tension and brunt of the situation was already borne by us, especially my wife.

When my sister landed up in hospital to see our mother, I expected that she would now share some hospital duties with my exhausted wife who had spent more than a week of sleepless nights tending to my mother and then going for work whole day, when I would stay in hospital. I asked my sister to stay for a few days so that my wife could recoup her energies, but I was stunned when my sister announced that she would be only staying for a day, and the next day, along with her husband, she went back to her home in Mumbai (which is just a three hours drive away). I wanted to protest to my mother and tell her to talk to my sister, but my wife silenced me saying that my mother was still not well and we should not give her unnecessary stress.

After we brought our mother to her home the workload increased even more, as in addition to nursing my bedridden mother, my wife had to do the cooking and housework too. She had to get up early, complete all the house work, then catch her bus to work, return in the evening, slog it out once again, and then sleep whole night on the couch next to my mother who would keep waking her for nature’s calls.

Seeing the strain taking its toll on my wife’s health, I asked my sister to come down for some time, at least a week or 10 days, and look after our mother so that my wife could get some well deserved rest. I also told her that her kids were well settled (her daughter is married and her son is working in America) whereas my son had come on a month’s leave, my daughter’s studies had to be looked into, and we wanted to stay together as a family and sort out some urgent pending domestic affairs.

I was shocked when my sister refused to come. You will not believe the excuse she gave: “My husband is not allowing me to go as he cannot stay alone for a week.”  I was even more surprised when my mother accepted this lame excuse saying that a wife has to listen to her husband and that it is the duty of the son (and daughter-in-law) to look after his parents and once a daughter gets married it is not her responsibility to look after her parents.

So we had no choice but to accept the fait accompli and continue to care, nurse and look after my mother till she recovers since my sister is shirking her responsibility.

Yesterday, I got a shock of my life when I came to know that my sister was flying abroad to America for nearly two months to visit her son. This made me really angry. On the one hand my sister’s husband could not spare her for a week to look after her hospitalised mother but now he was “allowing” her to go America for two months. Earlier he could not stay alone just for a week and now he does not mind living alone in Mumbai for two months. This is the height of double standards and hypocrisy. She cannot spare one week to look after her ailing bedridden mother who desperately needs her but she can easily spare two months for holidaying abroad with her son in America. 

In fact, even now my mother cannot stay alone and needs someone to look after her due to which I am living with her and it will be a great help for all of us even now if my sister can come for a month or so and live with my mother, look after her and boost her spirits. But no - for this her husband won't spare her since he cannot live without his wife for a month (not even a week), though he will quite happily live alone if she goes abroad for two months to holiday with her son!

How can anyone condone or justify such despicable behaviour? What astounds me is that despite all this, my mother accepts, rationalises and defends my sister’s behaviour and though my sister treats her like dirt she continues to blatantly favour my sister and gives a raw deal to my wife despite the fact that it is my wife who has always come to my mother's rescue in times of need and has selflessly served her with love and dedication. I am puzzled by all this and maybe the lesson I need to learn is: If You Want Respect From Someone You Must Treat That Person Like Dirt otherwise people will take you for granted.

I will put it in a nutshell for you. Just remember this saying:

IF YOU KICK ME I WILL LICK YOU but IF YOU LICK ME I WILL KICK YOU.

Strange are the ways of the human mind and one can never understand the mysteries of human nature and the paradoxes of human behaviour.

Do you agree? What are your life experiences? Any Comments?