When did kindness go out of fashion?

I remember when I was a little girl, I was always told by my mother and adults in the family to be kind, think before I speak, do not hurt feelings of others, it is a bad thing to do. As these values were imbibed in me at a very young age, they still remain. As I grew up I did realize kindness will not work with all kinds of people and in all situations. At times, one needs to put kindness aside and be stern and sometimes rude too. But one should not forget that being kind is a virtue that needs to be followed and inculcated among our little ones too.

These days however I am shocked to see people no longer regard kindness as a prerequisite to lead a good life. In fact sarcasm is the in thing, being rude is considered cool, ganging up and making fun of someone is what people love to indulge in. Switch on any TV channel and you will find the host and guests of talk shows yelling at the top of their voices. This so called trend started by Arnab has shockingly glued people onto his channel and soon other TV channels followed suit. Log on to twitter, face book and you find people attacking each other and trending. I recall when beefban was trending(#Baanistan) and Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha tweeted against the ban, people attacked her from all corners. Some of the twitter trolls calling her moti (fatso), asking her if she is hungry, calling her stupid. And some of them were famous public personalities. I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth. Just because we are entitled to freedom of speech doesn't mean we get away with saying anything.

This unruly behavior of media and people in general is no doubt being observed by our kids and they are imbibing this set of attitude and behavior. When I see young children talking these days, I am appalled sometimes by the way they talk, kindness aside they do not hesitate in making fun of others. It leaves me aghast thinking what kind of world I am leaving to my daughter

My daughter has just turned one- as I think of the values I would want to inculcate in her, kindness is definitely on high priority. It is not an easy virtue to practice specially these days when people all around you are full of sarcasm but the world surely needs more of it. I would also teach her to be able to judge in what situations and to which people this may not be ideal. I do not want her to be taken for a ride or end up hurting herself.

I wish we can build a kind world for our children where only love is the language spoken and one does not even hear of things like sarcasm or rudeness- a kind and happy planet for our kids. This can only happen when we practice this and bring kindness back into fashion.

 I would love to see #kindness trending one day.