Rafta rafta wo meri hasti ka sama'n ho gaye

Pehle jaa'n, phhir jan-e jaa'n, phhir jaan-e jaana'n ho gye

You must be humming this song the moment you read the lyrics. Originally, the late ghazal maestro Mehdi Hassan immortalised these lyrics. The underlying thought is the gradual importance of a species to someone. But I have a different reason to quote these lyrics here — with slightly negative and contrary connotations.

The apologue of the boiling frog says that when a frog is thrown into hot water, it jumps out in no time. However, when put into cool water which is then heated slowly, the frog stays until it boils to death. People, like frogs, get accustomed to abnormality if it is introduced slowly — but it kills them in the end.

This sluggish acquiescence to unpleasant circumstances which are later compromised as normal proves detrimental to human abilities and capabilities, particularly the ones that are sine qua non for bringing about amelioration in individual as well as collective life. This mentality is dubbed........

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