A 93-year-old freezes to death in his own house - with neighbours around him, in a country where freedom flourishes and civic facilities are among the best in the world. So what went wrong?

Society has made everyone so wary of the 'other'. Children are taught not to trust strangers. What on earth is a 'stranger'? EVERYONE is a stranger till you get to know them. Or do proponents of the 'stranger danger' theory believe that you must know all people genetically, or at least from birth?? It is this idea that makes us suspicious of everyone new. And that leads to our being so distrustful of other cultures that differences become insurmountable. One look at a person with a different kind of an apparel and we block them into a 'weird stranger' category. It was always very disturbing to me that when we can see how the world is a cornucopia of such a myriad cultures and peoples with Internet access and the media's amazing reach, we still reel with shock when we see someone dressed differently. But now I see - it has been built into us by parents and teachers telling us to stay away from the stranger. I believe keeping a child safe is the adult's responsibility. Scaring a child to watch out for himself , however well-meaning that may be (though I doubt that too!) makes him a paranoid adult eventually.

And where does that imbibed fear and mistrust leave us finally? We believe we have made a cocoon of safety but what we have is only isolation. By cutting of others and making our circle of comfort smaller we have pushed ourselves into a little pit where we cannot even see beyond ourselves.

It is a well known fact that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it also takes a village to care for those who need it. It must not be official. It has to be personal.

When I used to volunteer for the Meals-on-Wheels, I was directed to only deliver the meals and do nothing else. It was a terrible feeling to act so apathetic. One could see the recipients needed so much more than just a cooked meal. Sometimes just a little conversation. Sometimes a window that they needed opened, or the mail dropped. (Yes, I did it.)

I grew up in a culture where children in the neighbourhood played together and celebrated birthdays and festivals at each other's homes. We would know everyone who lived on our streets - whether their kids were friends or not - and dropped by to say hello all the time. I never felt safer anytime than in that unfettered childhood I had. It is a simple logic that has stood the test of time - real dangers and real stalkers do not have a chance to hurt if everyone is always connected and interacting.

We need to go back to those times of openness and caring. When one trusted that the world was mostly good, and the world responded by being that way. There may have been drawbacks but I am sure that they would be outweighed by the essence of society thus created. It would be a society where children grow up happy and carefree, and people do not die alone and helpless.