People’s ability to bring in negativity or find fault with just about anything has surprised me time and again. Of course, everything has two sides, perspectives differ from person to person. All said and done, there are some things so good that you shake your head in absolute disbelief when you see how people have managed to find fault with that too. You don’t believe me? Let me give you a couple of examples, the best I have seen.

The first is a rather viral news about Dr. Ganesh Rakh, the Pune OB-Gyn who made the headlines for delivering baby girls for free. After seeing how a girl’s birth was looked at as a curse by the families and how both the mother and baby were abandoned on many occasions, he took up this wonderful initiative which he hopes will reduce female foeticide at least to some extent. In a country where female foeticide is still a major issue and a girl child is still considered a burden by many, you would think that people would welcome any effort to fight this evil. But the highly educated and supposedly the most intelligent elites of Indian social media thought differently. They could think of this only as an act of gender discrimination. Many thought he was doing this for fame and some even went to the extent of saying that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill a male child for money.

I couldn’t believe not just the stupidity, but also the callousness in their arguments. In the one minute it took for them to type in their comments, they portrayed him as a fame-seeking unethical doctor who wouldn’t mind even killing an infant for money while ‘pretending’ to save another. I still don’t understand how people can say such nasty things about someone they don’t even know. And in painting him as the face of gender discrimination, they conveniently forget that in 2019 our government still has to use taglines like “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” to create awareness and plead with people to not kill their girls – in the womb and out of it. How much grimmer can it get for young girls, you ask! A man forsakes profits and even proper revenue in his hospital for the sake of these unborn girls and these people cry about gender discrimination. Dear morons, these girls don’t even get to see the world because they are killed off much before that – ONLY FOR BEING GIRLS! Fight that first, let them be born and then we can fight the gender discrimination that follows.

If you think what you read was a bad case of senseless negativity, wait till you read on. State-run engineering colleges in Rajasthan recently made planting a tree compulsory for all students. During their four years in college, they would plant at least one tree and take care of it if they want to get their degree. In a world which is at the brink of a complete breakdown owing to man’s atrocities against nature, something you and I are equally part of, we keep crying about helping mother nature, planting trees, signing petitions against cutting down trees, embracing an eco-friendly way of life and what not. And then under this piece of news, I see comments from angry youngsters saying how these colleges should let engineers excel in their fields and not make them do ‘menial’ tasks like planting trees which should be done by farmers. Because apparently global warming and subsequent issues are only faced by farmers and not engineers who have better things to worry about? Planting trees, encouraging the younger generation to protect nature – that is what they are complaining about! The kind of hateful comments under this news piece made me realize that for mankind there is nothing that is all good. There is no satisfying us. Throw the best, the best of the best at us and we will still find reasons to crib.

If you can hold on to your joy and positive energy in the midst of all this negativity radiated by the Grumblers’ Squad, consider yourself a winner. I’m not giving up without a fight. Hope you don’t either.