The language of magnanimity

Very often do I find it ridiculous how people opt to celebrate their milestones and achievements. When you are blinded by happiness, you become blind to the feelings of those who live around you. You keep floating on your cloud number whatsoever with the music playing in the background at a glass-shattering volume while your neighbours keep stuffing cotton wool into their ears, pinning for the goodnight sleep they are very much entitled to.
Parties are nice affairs with sufficient music to groove and keep the chatter going. Even if the party drags on till midnight, let the music play at a certain volume to keep the dance floor alive but not your neighbour wide awake at the wee hours of the morning.
We Sri Lankans have turned out to be a great set of show-offs, who will do anything and everything to place ourselves high above the rest. But sadly, this topping comes at a great price.
The sad side is that by the time you realize happiness or grief is already too full to be filled to with bottles and glasses of alcohol or thundering sounds only you can call music, best of your years will be gone. And to celebrate in the manner it is to be celebrated, there wouldn’t be anymore fetes left in your life-story. Spending your happy moment amidst your friends and loved ones is pleasant enough. Playing a host to them and keeping them entertained is your duty. But perhaps you always forget that your guests were never enemies with your neighbours and that they never backed you up to disturb your neighbourhood. You share the special meal with your loved ones but at the same time you snatch away the morsel of sleep of the ones who are within earshot.
If you are not too drunk in the ecstasy of passing an exam, getting promoted or being a birthday boy or girl, take a bird’s eye view from your mind’s eye and see how many are rendered destitute by poverty, floods and other disasters. And spare a thought about their hunger, the helplessness and constant exposing to elements. They are not super human beings, but the ordinary ones just like you and I. If you are not rich enough to cook a meal for them, at least think of the ones who are within the reach of your help. Certainly the woman next door who attained motherhood few weeks ago must be struggling to put the baby to sleep while the teenager in the rear house might be studying for his O/Ls, and they deserve to be in your thoughts before you touch the volume control of your hi-fi set up.

And they say, silence speaks, in this case, perhaps the language of magnanimity.