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Dear Y’sm. Editor,
The Y’s Men’s World is meant to provide “Education, Enlightenment and Entertainment” as you have said in the last issue of the magazine. Doubtless, it does that without stint and with great aplomb. If, however, there is room in the magazine for a bit of self-examination on our part –you see, there are Y’s men and then there are Y’s men- I may make bold to offer the following as food for thought for the latter.
The Y’s Men’s movement enjoins its members ‘to acknowledge the duty that accompanies every right’. Fine words, those. To put those words into practice has, however, not always been entirely successful across the board. You see, some of us manage to wriggle out of our duties and let the ‘willing horses’ in our clubs do all the ‘donkey’ work, but then have no qualms about basking in the reflected glory of the ‘awards’ that the service-minded have won for the club. The former find it expedient to ‘reap where they have not sown’. How many of us in Y’sdom can say, hand on heart, ‘I have done my best, or at least I have tried to, given the bread-and-butter constraints I have’, I wonder. Perhaps many would find it more honest to hide behind the words, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait’.
We live in a society in which people are miserly in giving due recognition and respect to those who shun the limelight and work unobtrusively to promote whatever cause they eagerly espouse to help their less fortunate brethren. They are taken for granted, although they themselves consciously seek no recognition or rewards for their work. The least we can do is to conserve this rare breed of people in the larger interests of society, considering how they are as thin on the ground as snowflakes in summer.
What could be the reason for their diminishing numbers? Well, for one thing, their magnanimity has been strained to the limits. They begin to suffer from ‘duty fatigue’. They fall by the wayside. Why, you might ask. I will tell you why. When they look around them, they see some fellow travellers who only have an eye to the main chance for gaining recognition and preferment without having to work for it. Again, when they are called upon to support a project with their time and effort, not to mention money, they let their practice fall far short of our acclaimed precepts. To put it differently, ‘their offerings hardly match their words’. This observation is in no way meant to take anything away from the credit that our movement as a whole so richly deserves for the manifold services we render to the society at large without a thought for applause or recognition.
Y’s Man E. Joseph John, (Y’s Men’s Club of Maramon, SW India Region.)
Nadavallil House,
Kumbanad 689 547,
Kerala.
Phone +469 2664253/2670792
Mobile 9495053050
Email ammoose@satyam.net.in or ammoose2@yahoo.co.in
