The dictionary meaning of word cruel says - to make someone suffer or to give pain to someone. Are all of us cruel in our own ways? Some of us are more than others, but is cruelty a part of every personality?

Let us look at it from the other side? Don't we all feel that many times our friends, family and even the people dearest to us act in ways that hurt us? Sometimes, we tell them about it, and sometimes we ignore. But is it not true that all those who relate with us closely at some point in our life, hurt us? The hurt may not be by a deed. It can be words spoken harshly. It can be misunderstanding our motives and giving them different color. It can be accusing us for no fault of ours. Or it can be simply not trying to understand us. All these actions hurt us. Don't we think at that time that if the other party had been more understanding, we would have felt more comfortable?

Cruelty does not escape even the most loving mothers. When a mother is tense and tired, many times, she lets her child cry for milk for sometime ignoring the cries and rather cursing the child of hunger at all the times. The child does not understand any of his/her mother's problems, but only wants to be fed. It is not the child's mistake, but he /she is hurt. Why? Husbands knowingly not trying to help their wives in household chores, wives knowing all about husband's career problems still blaming him for small mistakes, children in a class room, targeting a child for a physical quality, and so on. Are all these not parts of a cruel nature?

Companies not responding immediately to consumer's problems, consumers hammering the companies for smallest faults, lawsuits being filed for trivial matters, students made to slog in the schools to get higher marks at the cost of their childhood, politicians accusing each other of crimes never committed, and so many other such instances that can be cited to prove that somewhere in our life, we begin losing our compassion. Sadly, in most of the cases, we are not aware of our cruelty. We become aware of it only when we are targeted. Don't you agree that the world is slowly becoming a cruel world?