Empathy, apathy, and being human

Empathy - Empathy is the capacity to understand what another person is experiencing from within the other person's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's shoes.

Apathy (also called perfunctoriness) is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, and concern. Apathy is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, and/or passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical and/or physical life and the world.

Thinking of 2 deaths that we read about this week one showing empathy and other apathy

Everyone knows about Aruna's case. The empathy and kindness she received from the KEM nurses after she suffered from the brutal horrifying crime is truly commendable. It was an absolutely noble display of empathy towards other human being.

Just then read about sad death of a fellow colleague of mine. This young lady of 22 years who just joined our organization got hit while crossing the road at night. It was a busy western express highway at 8:00 pm, not an isolated deserted place. The driver who had hit her placed her on footpath, left at someone else's mercy while she was bleeding.  All she got was apathy from people passing by. No one thought of stopping and helping her. After 20 mins or so someone just called police and ran away, by the time police came and took her to the hospital, it was too late, the young energetic lady had left this world!

All this happened when the organization completed one year of its safety initiative. Of course we need to keep safety in mind all the time or rather make it a habit. It's always convenient for all of us to blame the victim, the lady should not have slept in the Uber cab, or the last should not have crossed the highway like that. But in our busy life we do not wish to be little more empathetic towards other human beings and help them! All we think of is the inconvenience it may bring to us if we get involved in the police case, we wish to stay away from all that, be in our comfortable routine. The news hurt even more after recent verdict of hit and run case for Salman.

A little empathy could have saved her, probably even a fraction of what the nurses showered on Aruna. Just wondering when we can start becoming a little more human. May the innocent souls rest in peace.