HIGH prices of commodities are not the bane of our society. The real misery is that prices are never the true worth of quality. A person of my acquaintance belonging to the salaried class recently bought clothes for his children to celebrate Eid.

It so happened that the parents were invited by a relative to an Iftar party. So, they clothed their children in the new outfits. The children were all smiles, and so were the parents. However, as it happens in our Kafkaesque society, happiness is always the “occasional episode in a general drama of pain”.

The clothes could not bear their first wash. The colour faded away, and so did the joy of the parents. That is where inflation starts gnawing at the happiness of the common man.

Selling unworthy, adulterated and spurious merchandise is never acceptable by any yardstick of business ethics. It is a violation of public rights and responsibility, but post-industrial societies have become disturbingly individualistic. Doris Lessing in her short story A mild attack of locusts describes the rampage of locusts on the poor farmers’ crops, but equally stresses the moral obligations to community welfare: “For, of course, while every farmer hoped the locusts would overlook his farm and go on to the next, it was only fair to warn each other; one must play fair.”

The human ecosystem demands that symbiotic relationship must not be parasitic (benefits one, but harms the other), nor commensalistic (benefits one and neither helps nor harms the other). It must be mutualistic — beneficial to both.

The summary of the seventh chapter of World Happiness Report 2025 says: “The degree of benevolence in a country also has a profound impact on its politics. Populism is largely due to unhappiness.” Unhappiness is the drought of benevolence, leading to political polarisation.

Eid ought to be an occasion to share our space, time and resources, as sharing is caring, which is ‘twice-blessed’; it blesses both the sharer and the recipient. Let us on this Eid effectuate the following ideal attributed to John Wesley: “Do all the good you can; By all the means you can; In all the ways you can; In all the places you can; At all the times you can; To all the people you can; As long as ever you can.”

M. Nadeem Nadir
Kasur

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2025