The demands of modern life, nurtured to their abhorrent health by unrelenting materialism, invariably leave us self-centred. And the natural fallout of being selfish is that we, consciously or unconsciously, ignore others. And when we begin to ignore each other it leads to what has become one of the most dreaded of modern day problems: Loneliness.

It is a malaise that really doesn’t have a cure because it assaults us in a variety of ways.

A father writes from Bangalore: I get to see my son only on Sundays. Rest of the week I wait for Sunday to come. My wife is too sick to move.

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Loneliness is the price they are paying for a secure life.

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A teenager tells me: Both my parents work and come back home late. Well, the television is a big relief. But at times I feel very lonely and feel like crying.

A housewife complains: My husband is out for eight to nine hours. The rest of the day is shared by his friends and television. I am left with nothing.

Felled by a broken relationship, a bachelor keeps telling me: How much can you read? How much can you listen to music? How many phone calls can you make? It’s very frustrating, I must admit.

A company executive argues: I believe in spending only quality time with my family because I have to work for almost 30 days a month. His wife and daughters wait almost throughout the month for that quality time. Loneliness is the price they are paying for a secure life.

The pain of being left alone is excruciating because when some of us take vows over fires it is less about a secure life and more about love. It is more about sitting by the fire with hands passionately joined and less about it being a holy pledge.

The aforementioned forms of loneliness can be fought, but never defeated because each blow is a fallout of one’s essential need and needs have only one answer, they have to be answered.  

(The trigger for this article is an Emirati gentleman, who makes it a point to visit lonely people with sweets every Eid.)