Fiction Park: Do not Judge, Understand!

Always seated in the last bench of the class was an overweight boy with thick eyeglasses named Kancho. Small eyes with big eyeglasses, small head with large torso, tall and heavy but weak, Kancho was an eccentric person- obnoxious, introverted and anti-social. Characterized by a reclusive nature, he rarely spoke to any of the classmates in the class, let alone the teachers in school. Isolated, in so as much by his own will as by social boycotts, he was not interested in social activities and gatherings. His eccentric behavior became the subject of mockery to the class. The whole class, not excluding me, used to bully him for his attire, looks, and big eyeglasses.  A day never went by in which we did not make fun of him.  However, he neither responded to us verbally or physically, nor did he complain to teachers in his defense. This stirred us to decisively make fun of him as much as we liked.  

      It never occurred to me why Kancho acted the way he did. There should have been a reason, if not many, I never thought- it was too much to think for a twelve year old kid like me. I did what most of the people did to him: teased and made fun of him. Time moved along as we made progress towards our junior year of high school. Even after a couple of years together in the same school, our attitude towards Kancho unfortunately did not change; neither did Kancho’s attitude and behavior. In the junior year of our high school, Kancho transferred to another high school.

    The same year that Kancho left our school, great adversity struck my family.  My father, the only economically active member of my family, had to wash his hand of his job because of job cut offs in my country following economic depression. This made my family economically weak and volatile. I started to work an average of four hours a day to support my family while still continuing my studies, in the process making my academics as fragile as the economic situation of my family. My routine became so hectic that I had scarcely any time to do school work. Thus, it became hard for me to cope with rigor of the curriculum. In the meantime, I was struggling economically even after my earnest effort to improve economic condition of my family. My family had a scarce amount of money to perform even the mundane economic activities. I passed through such miserable times that I did not have enough money to get myself a pack of lunch. I went from a well off and brilliant student to an impecunious underperformer in one turn of event!

     

       This change in circumstances changed the behavior of my friends towards me in an unprecedented way. My friends started to harass me for not being tidy, for struggling to pay my tuitions, and for being an underperformer. They started to speak in patronizing tones whenever I approached them; they just were not as co-operative as they used to be.  This led to my isolation from my friends’ circle. I neither cared what my friends said about me, nor tried to elucidate them of my changes in circumstances which attributed to the ways I acted in my life. Whether or not they included me in their gatherings, parties and hangouts did not bother me after all. Nothing besides myself became a matter of my concern. I started to enjoy my struggling life which was, to a great degree, analogous to Kancho’s life when he was in our high school: dejected, declined and desolated.   

      With profound understanding of reasons for my own isolation, I then understood the reasons for Kancho’s isolation as well.  I concluded that it was not Kancho who was responsible for his eccentric behavior, but the society around him which shaped him to act in certain ways. Because he was obese and wore thick glasses - traits which he might have obtained from the genes of his parents- he was disliked, and thus bullied by the majority of the students.  These two judgmental effects made me reach some understanding of my life, which I would not have deciphered had I not gone through similar circumstances as that of Kancho. I, like my friends, was disposed to judge Kancho on account of his obesity and optical problem. Then, I went through an uncontrollable circumstance in my life that affected the way I acted in my life, which in turn catalyzed my friends to derogatively judge me.  This unique juxtaposition taught me to never judge people on basis of uncontrollable circumstances, genetic traits or possessions which they gain by birth.