There used to be a story in the elementary book for teaching the first graders the first fundamental that branches that bear fruit bend downwards connecting with the moral that higher you climb on the social ladder more humble and kind you become! Normally, for people with right grain, power and humility are two sides of the same coin. It is a thesis of behavioural transformation and intuitive public manifestation. Actually it might be taken as an open barometer of judging a person's power by seeing how polite, kind, humble and respectful one becomes! Self-confidence is a natural outcome of the respect one enjoys.
In a rare case when a public person is treated with less respect than is genuinely due to him or her a mere quip of grace on their part is all that is needed to turn the situation in their favour. What went wrong with our respected former Chairman Senate who even had the opportunity of acting as the President of the country, baffles my mind. I had known him for long as a smiling and kindly human. One thought that those were his core personality traits that were hardwired in his brain. Having basked in the glory of the head of the establishment, he was supposed to have known that the bedrock on which the establishment rests at the grass-root level is that of a constable. A constable is the primary pillar and instrument of maintaining public order. Maltreating a constable when he is doing his duty erodes the edifice of public order.
Most of the time countless constables stand guard, come hell or high water, for the likes of the Very Important Persons (VIPs) for hours on end that should have engendered sympathy and compassion in his mind for those at the receiving end of the public pump and show of the VIPs. Even an ordinary person would feel very sympathetic and kind to the constables standing by the road side and endlessly guarding the VIPs' residences.
I felt shocked at the reportedly unexpected, wild and brutal behaviour of my cool friend. Nothing should have provoked him to this blatant act because in an influence-based society he still has a lot of power and should not have been frustrated and flustered to lose his cool. I recall writing a letter of felicitation to him on his becoming the Chairman of the Upper House of the country. He brought an historic honour to the people of the Pothohar and they also felt more graced by his feat. I still have a hard time believing his leaving the cool to slap the law enforcer and much more serious that he would let his son do so because of latter's false sense of power, for he has yet to achieve any public acclaim of his own like that of his father.