A few days ago, I found myself walking the streets of many US cities. The idea is to finish and add an end-cap qualitative statement to city culture for a study that covers as many as 21 different urban agglomerations across the globe. This will take me in the coming months to Istanbul, Beijing, Tokyo, N’Djamena and 16 other buzzing mega-cities of the world.
As my travel-weary feet cover 36,000-plus steps every day, the learning is wide and deep. Every city has changed and every piece of culture is continuously evolving. There is the “new city person” and “the old city person”. The two are like chalk and cheese.
The purpose of this piece is however not to bemoan the diversity of it all, as much as to knit together a perspective that floats above the fog and envelopes the attitude and behaviour of the big-city person. Let me explain. Let me just pick one behavioural aspect that boggles many of us. And let me pick the city of New York and its cousin across the Hudson, Newport City, for this exercise. And let me pick the Indian out there.
Wherever I go, I see Indians. I feel good. New York, and more so Newport, has a huge complement of the Indian. New York has the older generations of Indians who came to the US and set up their lives, apart from their business and professional practices. And their children and grandchildren who continued to live the big-city life. Newport, on the contrary, has the temporary migrant, out here to make a living in the realms of new enterprises. While one depends on the physical workplace and its joys, the other thrives in a personal ecosystem of comfort and work, which involves a hectic day at home working and a hectic evening out of home partying.
Let’s leave them for now and see just one behavioural trait that distinguishes the new Indian in America. This is a person you and I don’t really know. If I pick up a coffee from a Starbucks, at the end of the delightful set of swigs, I make sure the cup is dunked carefully into bins that segregate bio, paper and metal waste. And the best part is that I don’t have to go too far to find a waste disposal bin in New York or Newport for that matter. I don’t spit on the road and neither do I urinate against a wall anywhere around. I am different out here and I behave differently. The moment I get back home to Madurai, I will do just what I want and where I want. But when I am in the US, I will take out a different version of who I really am. This is something that has bewildered us all the while, hasn’t it? Harish Jekyll in the US and Harish Hyde in India.
Why do we behave differently in different environments? And why can’t we be the same wherever we are, at least in terms of managing our civic duties and civic lives? Why do we forget good habits the moment we cross political boundaries of country differentiations?
As we fight over what to include and what to exclude from our kids’ textbooks in primary school, Japan seems to be doing it differently. This very old nation of 126 million people is focusing on what to teach the kid in school as well. In Japan, kids are encouraged to go to school on their own. There is no parent or nanny taking a kid to school to be dropped at the gates. Kids are encouraged to be responsible in their daily walk to school. You will see kids actually picking up paper and plastic waste (if they are rarely and accidentally found on their streets) en route. The kids cross the road at zebra crossings only, and responsibly. These very kids will bow deferentially with respect to motorists who have stopped to allow them to cross. And motorists do stop for both kids and ducks crossing. Respect is the norm. A norm taught to kids very early in life. A norm that becomes a part of the child’s DNA at large.
The schools they go to have no janitors at all. The kids do the cleaning and the clean-up after class is done. The child turns into a responsible individual at age six, and literally all of society spends their energies to develop responsible citizens of the future. Adults teach kids. And each of these adults is very responsible. Responsible enough to ensure that no kid learns anything negative from them. Being polite, avoiding cutting into queues and cleaning up is all part of this upbringing. Many of us still remember the sight of fans cleaning up the stadium after a World Cup match. That’s being Japanese today. Being civil. Being civic. And importantly, being civilised, I guess.
The key insight behind Japanese society is the idea and truth that no one is born impolite. No one is born rude. No one is born irresponsible. Society and our very upbringing seem to make us impolite, rude and irresponsible. Education therefore assumes a larger role in creating the new society of the future. Every child and its education is seen to be an investment into the future. A simple insight has helped build Japanese society into what it is today: selfless, inclusive and responsible.
Our schools are the building blocks of society. The smallest unit of a society is the individual, and it is this very individual who is to be shaped to become the pillar of future society. Japan has cracked the idea right. If only all of us were to pay the right kind of attention to what our children must really learn in our schools, I do believe we will get it right as well. Every school of ours, public and private, needs to imbue into its curriculum, real civic sense. It is not enough to learn Modern Civics in a textbook. And let alone our schools, it is important for all of us in modern society to sit up and get guilty every time we perform an act that goes against the law, the rules of civilised living, and indeed rules that propitiate the rude, the selfish and the self-serving.
In many ways, this looks like a completely difficult task to achieve. When many of us are still fighting for the basics of food, clothing and shelter, isn’t it a bit utopian (or Japanese for that matter) to expect the building blocks of modern civilised society to fall into place in India? Or is it? Must we not fight for a universal truth? Love is one such truth that holds true across every nation of the world. Peace and its quest equally are. As is the universal search for happiness. A polite society, a respectful society and indeed a society that believes that we create the future is one that we need to aim to build.
And yes, many of us have given up on this. The domino effect of hunger, poverty and illness seems to destroy its quest. And yet one country has got it right. Japan has. If Japan can, can’t we? Or is it beyond our reach? The answer seems to be blowing in the wind of every adult’s act that seems to teach our kids that doing it wrong is the right way to live in a society that is tough to live in. Compete and win. Win by all means. Win by any means as well.
I think we need to turn Darwinism upside down if we have to get our future societies right. It is really not survival of the fittest that must define the future world. It sure must be survival of the happiest. And indeed the politest of the happiest. If our country is to be truly great, we need to get our children to be truly great. And that happens in our schools, our homes, our streets, and most certainly in the kind of representative lives we lead. Let’s try then! Or have we given up already?
Brand Guru & Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.