LAMENTATIONS

Lamentations

 Most people know of lamentations of a soldier. But, why lamentations should be for soldiers alone? Possibly it could be for anyone. Anyone who works hard may lament, for workers alone lament and the few who seldom work too lament that their wages are low.  Lamenting appears to be an aspect of human life. Why people lament – is something that none can appropriately explain. Still, the process is integral to human life albeit its variance in degrees. Indeed it is quite interesting that the cause of lamentation is as varied as the variety of lamentations themselves.

Is lamentation a route to relieve monotony in work /workplace?

Lamentation may not help in mental relief, since its origin in a person owes itself to one’s thought process; being so, the scope for relieving monotony is far low to that of re-living monotony in the same act.  Interestingly, lamenting is not a product of age. Even children beyond the level of grade 5 or 6 begin the game of lamentation; yes it is a game in the sense that it involves the members of the society around us. I do not intend suggesting that members around us are responsible for our predicament. Yet, in a way unforeseen or never conceived, someone causes a ripple which unfailingly expands and ramifies into zones of one’s activity leading to discomfort though not dislocation per se.   A number of items –big or small can silently provoke lamentation; in fact its dimensions are varied. Some instant samples are - score in an examination, inability to complete work on time, dissatisfaction over our work by superiors, complicating our work schedules by inserting extra inputs which may necessitate revamping the entire data analysis, even as the administration fails to recognize the burden and the risk of error in view of the complex data base and so on. While the items so far listed pertain to pressure from work, even non-work criteria may prove cumbersome creating a mental block and destroying peace in pursuit of routine.     Using personal conveyance we rush to work hoping to make substantial progress to the target.  Right at that point our route to workplace is clogged by irate crowds that a relative of one of them died in the hospital, from improper treatment. The crowd of laymen lay siege to all modes of transport and insist on meeting the district Collector at that place of commotion. Would we not lament that our higher authority would not buy these explanations? What a world we are in. After, straining every nerve, a worker [be it of any cadre] would be taxed with more work only to lament again. None ever seeks to know why so much work was left unattended to. But, they readily thrust it on the task force under their care or control. The cycle repeats itself all over again.   

Prof. K. Raman