Altruism- illusion or reality?

According to the oxford dictionary, altruism is defined as an act of unselfishness. But does altruism really exist?

According to the author of “The Fountain Head” , Ayn Rand, it doesn’t. What exists is only the Creator. The altruist is the most selfish man, although he calls himself selfless. Altruism is slavery. The altruist is a parasite and a secondhander. Through Howard Roark she puts forth the idea of the ultimate egotist- the creator. The altruist is a person who wants to serve humanity, but by doing so wants to see mankind suffer. He sacrifices other people and in the process ends up in a sea of blood. The creator creates for himself and the altruist destroys what the creator creates in the name of humanity.

If what Ayn Rand says is considered true then Adolf Hitler becomes an altruist. But is he? And what do Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela become? Selfish? Sacrificial? Humanitarian? Were Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King selfish because they tried to unify people and lead them onto a new path? It takes courage to face the flak of the system and go against it. To bear lathis on your body without uttering a word. To leave one’s homeland to serve people from another country. To be jailed for 27 years to save people from racism. Yes they were selfish because they tried to gain satisfaction of doing something for others benefit, happiness of helping mankind and get a good nights sleep. They are not unselfish because they have a hidden motive- that of seeing other people happy and contented in life, people without the extra baggage of suffering, without diseases, racism and communalism to bother them. Yes Altruism is an illusion because it does not exist in its true sense. Even if the act is for the betterment of the people. Even if it’s not materialistic. Even if it’s the noblest one.

The people who want to see others happy are selfish because they cannot be happy if others are sad. That means that their ultimate aim is happiness for themselves. So does it make a huge difference? If we stop feeling for others and live only for ourselves, won’t we become stone hearted, soulless bodies? It is this empathy and sometimes sympathy that we feel for others that makes us human beings. And it is this very feeling that gave India its independence and the Negroes equal rights in USA It is also the lack of this feeling that gave us two world wars and has brought us on the threshold of another one.

So I think is thanks to these altruists who laid the foundations of service to others that gives us a world that’s somewhat a better place to live in. Think about it.

Being Aishwarya....

This year she was christened as Aishwarya Rai. Before that she was Madhuri Dixit and before that she was Sri Devi. But she was oblivious to all the names that people called her. No one knew her real name. She was one of those unsolved mysteries that every professional college possesses. And this very old and reputed college of medicine, right in the heart of Mumbai, where people from all classes came together to become doctors, had its very own living legend.
Aishwarya (as she was called) was not really soothing to the eye. High cheek bones, an equally high forehead that became a tightly bound, oily plait, a crooked nose and the most striking feature of all- loads of Melanin, made her look like a real misfit in the elite crowd. One entire table in the library was reserved for her. She was at it at 9.00a.m sharp and left it only in the evening when the library closed. Nobody ever saw her in the canteen to grab a bite or even in the bathroom. All she did was scribble something illegible on a piece of paper with a pencil. She never referred any books. Never talked to anybody. Nobody knew what her age was-25 or maybe 30 maybe 35- and nobody really cared. Batches came and went, but Aishwarya remained behind-unshakable, unfathomable…
Of course there were the stories. One vague story said that Aishwarya was a student of that institution, aspiring to become a doctor, but failed her last year more than once and lost her sanity. All she did after that was scribble. Another one, more vague than the first one says that she never belonged to this institution. She was a patient in the hospital attached to the college and was so awestruck by its size and enormity that she decided to stay back-forever, acting like a student doctor. But since she never created any problems for anybody, she was allowed to stay-forever.
In the meantime Aishwarya continues to be the laughing stock for these gifted students who have come here to learn to ease pain and suffering but fail to understand the silent, unknown agony that this Aishwarya is suffering. Waiting to be named something else by some other batch….