Today morning at roughly 7 am humanity was crushed cruelly by a so-called psycopath in the city of Pune. I get a call from a friend asking me to tune in to the TV news.
My first reaction when I hear the news is of shock, then bewilderment and then an unashamed feeling of relief. Yes relief, that I or my near ones was not one among the victims and that I am to leave for office after its all over.
With a little shaking hand I start my car and get it on road. While I drive mechanically, my mind wanders to the thoughts of this unusual incidence.
First and foremost...
Is there any value today for a human life?
Yes...we all know the answer, unfortuhatnately, is big NO.
It is even cliche to say that 'we have grown insensitive to such incidences.'
I ask myself, If I would have been among those 9 who died or even among those who are still fighting death, would my family and near ones have been insensitive to this incident.
Anyways, that still does not answer my first question... Is there no value for human life ??
Surely incidences like bombblasts,major fires,stampedes and big accidents, have lately been so common place that we read about it, may be watch the news like a film scene..say tut tut for the victims and go to sleep probably thinking...'look my near ones are peacefully asleep,thats important for me...what has happened to others I can hardly help or change..so why do I worry with something that has happened at a Kolkata or a Noida or a Nasik....'
And I am snoring in 5 minutes after it...
So, I get my answer..there is no value for human life. And I am in no position to do anything about it.
And then the realisation dawns on me. There is no value even for my life. Because I am among those thousands who are currently on roads. And probably everyone has the same fear in their mind.
Am I safe today...this hour.....this very moment ?
Suddenly even at 9.30 in the morning, on a winter day, with AC on in the car, I feel I am sweating.
I glance around. I can see no cheerful faces, in cars or on bikes. Everyone seems to have got engulfed with a feeling. Let me reach my office, or home safely.
I hear on the radio that the man was a bus driver and he was a psychiatric case.
I think, what would have made this man a ravaging maniacs to go berserk on crowded roads? A person who was cooly crushing vehicles and humanbeing for a good 90 minutes must be a cold blooded man..a murderer.Or was he?
Why did he do this? A morning fight with his wife perhaps..or a earlier day scowl from his superior...or some financials stress? Or was it a outburst of a volcano which was hidden somewhere deep in his mind waiting to errupt, which came out suddenly due to one of the above reasons. May be...but I did not know the correct answer.
I reach office...people around keep talking of the incident the whole day. The questions lingers in my mind.
Whether its running back off my mind, I would not know..but by evening I get the answer.
It is the age old problem of humanbeings to carry the 'monkey on the shoulder'.
Yes...its our habit of carrying our problems in the outside world to our inside world and vice versa.
Remember, why at times we suddenly are awake at 5 am in the morning and then cant sleep even if you had full 2 more hours of sugar sleep? Targets not completed...the 10 am con call..the sullen face of the boss.
Remember the last time your mother and wife had a quarrel and how the whole day you spent restless at your office? Will they fight again when I am not at home..what will my children think?
Yes, its our inability to get from one mental frame to another..our inability to forget thing easily...
our inability to 'Switch off'. Yes... thats the word ..'Switch off'.
Your and mine, our unwillingness to switch off is the bane of all the frustration that we carry from home to office and then from office to home day in and day out.
Look at this incident. Who would have imagined that a man who had got may be 50 passengers from Gangapur to Pune, a journey of non stop 9 hours, only the earlier night..safely while the passengers were sleeping peacefully, would wake up after a brief sleep, take out the first bus he gets from the bus stand, run amock for an hour and half, and crush around the same 50 innocent people.
Why..?
May be he had a quarrel with his wife at home.
May be he was not happy with the result of his child in the unit test.
May be he got a call from the money lender friend of his reminding him of the next interest instalment which he could not pay.
The reason could be this or anything different from this. But the fact that he carried the monkey on his shoulders to work and something at the workplace just gave a trigger to the volcano was a sure reason for this disaster.
It could have been avoided...
If only he had put that monkey back in the cage before coming to the bus stand. 9 innocent lives would have joined their families for dinner and would be cuddled in the beds with the wives and children as I type these words.
...If only Santosh Mane would have 'switched off' in time...
My first reaction when I hear the news is of shock, then bewilderment and then an unashamed feeling of relief. Yes relief, that I or my near ones was not one among the victims and that I am to leave for office after its all over.
With a little shaking hand I start my car and get it on road. While I drive mechanically, my mind wanders to the thoughts of this unusual incidence.
First and foremost...
Is there any value today for a human life?
Yes...we all know the answer, unfortuhatnately, is big NO.
It is even cliche to say that 'we have grown insensitive to such incidences.'
I ask myself, If I would have been among those 9 who died or even among those who are still fighting death, would my family and near ones have been insensitive to this incident.
Anyways, that still does not answer my first question... Is there no value for human life ??
Surely incidences like bombblasts,major fires,stampedes and big accidents, have lately been so common place that we read about it, may be watch the news like a film scene..say tut tut for the victims and go to sleep probably thinking...'look my near ones are peacefully asleep,thats important for me...what has happened to others I can hardly help or change..so why do I worry with something that has happened at a Kolkata or a Noida or a Nasik....'
And I am snoring in 5 minutes after it...
So, I get my answer..there is no value for human life. And I am in no position to do anything about it.
And then the realisation dawns on me. There is no value even for my life. Because I am among those thousands who are currently on roads. And probably everyone has the same fear in their mind.
Am I safe today...this hour.....this very moment ?
Suddenly even at 9.30 in the morning, on a winter day, with AC on in the car, I feel I am sweating.
I glance around. I can see no cheerful faces, in cars or on bikes. Everyone seems to have got engulfed with a feeling. Let me reach my office, or home safely.
I hear on the radio that the man was a bus driver and he was a psychiatric case.
I think, what would have made this man a ravaging maniacs to go berserk on crowded roads? A person who was cooly crushing vehicles and humanbeing for a good 90 minutes must be a cold blooded man..a murderer.Or was he?
Why did he do this? A morning fight with his wife perhaps..or a earlier day scowl from his superior...or some financials stress? Or was it a outburst of a volcano which was hidden somewhere deep in his mind waiting to errupt, which came out suddenly due to one of the above reasons. May be...but I did not know the correct answer.
I reach office...people around keep talking of the incident the whole day. The questions lingers in my mind.
Whether its running back off my mind, I would not know..but by evening I get the answer.
It is the age old problem of humanbeings to carry the 'monkey on the shoulder'.
Yes...its our habit of carrying our problems in the outside world to our inside world and vice versa.
Remember, why at times we suddenly are awake at 5 am in the morning and then cant sleep even if you had full 2 more hours of sugar sleep? Targets not completed...the 10 am con call..the sullen face of the boss.
Remember the last time your mother and wife had a quarrel and how the whole day you spent restless at your office? Will they fight again when I am not at home..what will my children think?
Yes, its our inability to get from one mental frame to another..our inability to forget thing easily...
our inability to 'Switch off'. Yes... thats the word ..'Switch off'.
Your and mine, our unwillingness to switch off is the bane of all the frustration that we carry from home to office and then from office to home day in and day out.
Look at this incident. Who would have imagined that a man who had got may be 50 passengers from Gangapur to Pune, a journey of non stop 9 hours, only the earlier night..safely while the passengers were sleeping peacefully, would wake up after a brief sleep, take out the first bus he gets from the bus stand, run amock for an hour and half, and crush around the same 50 innocent people.
Why..?
May be he had a quarrel with his wife at home.
May be he was not happy with the result of his child in the unit test.
May be he got a call from the money lender friend of his reminding him of the next interest instalment which he could not pay.
The reason could be this or anything different from this. But the fact that he carried the monkey on his shoulders to work and something at the workplace just gave a trigger to the volcano was a sure reason for this disaster.
It could have been avoided...
If only he had put that monkey back in the cage before coming to the bus stand. 9 innocent lives would have joined their families for dinner and would be cuddled in the beds with the wives and children as I type these words.
...If only Santosh Mane would have 'switched off' in time...
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