Disclaimer: All incidents in this story are factual
and the characters have been kept discreet (although they are quite obviously
recognisable). This is a real life incidence
When most of my
country is busy blaming the younger generation for many problems, we
somehow ignore some facts. My generation may be arrogant and sharp-tongued, but
we never came into the romantic and rosy 70’s or 80’s. We were brought up in
the same world that we beware each other of. "Its a dog eat dog world" is one of the most memorable adages I remember from my secondary school days. We are bound to be rougher on the
edges. Be it the rising crime rate, the rising acts of violence, the rising
health issues or even lame things for which we can’t possibly be blamed: like
rising prices or temperatures or the lack of rainfall may become our fault.
“Sab iss generation ki galti hai! Aap logon ki
generation hi aisi hai!” I say, “ Arey bhai KAISI hai? We never caused global warming! We were
raised to be aware of it unlike the generation before us that welcomed us into it! And I still wonder why we are being blamed?” Okay, maybe
we never created the evils and granted that we fueled the spark. But sometimes it feels like we take the blame for the one thing we have on our side- our Youth!
I would like to share an incidence.
The old man is
standing right next to the divider as if he were about to cross
over to the other side. The boy notices the man swiveling and jokingly tugs
the girls’ sleeve and points out the man to her saying, “Why the hell is he
dancing in the middle of the road, is he that drunk?” and they giggle. A second
later the girl turns back again to look at him and realises that the old man is
jerking. And quiet vigorously at that. She pulls both the boys at their sleeves
and says sternly, “Something’s wrong with him ... Please... Just go grab him
before he falls.”
The road on
which this is all happening isn’t deserted, by the way. Even at 10 in the night,
because of the Cineplex and all the youngsters going for late night shows, there
are a lot of cars whirring past the jerking man. So for his life’s sake the
guys run to the man and the girl runs to nearby Panwadi (there’s always a
Panwadi nearby!) and buys a bottle of cold water. She then rushes back to
the guys who help the old man stand up, and escort him to the other side of the
road and make him sit down on the pedestrian pathway.
In a while the
man was unconscious. He wasn’t drunk as he didn’t smell of any alcohol. He was
breathing uneven. His pockets were full of cash. He had no mobile phone or any
I/D card on him. He wasn’t conscious enough to tell them where he lived. He
couldn’t sip any water so they had to force feed him. He couldn’t sit straight.
The three youngsters panicked. They didn’t
have any commutation. The man was too heavy to carry. And if he
lost any cash from his stuffed pockets they would be the culprits. All the auto-drivers, panwadis and the smokers who had gathered
around don't want anything to do with it. Everyone except those three kids
stayed at least 10 feet away forming a ring of spectators around them.
The three split
up and one of the guys went on the foot searching for a sentry or a policeman,
the girl was frantically trying to call the emergency helpline of Delhi Police
and the sole guy was taking care of the unconscious fat man. There was no trace of a cop nearby to help or an
ambulance. The girl was frustrated with the operator on the helpline who was
more interested in taking down her particulars rather than helping the man lumped up on the sidewalk.
Right then, a young
couple- a man and a lady - who were speeding past the Cineplex, stopped a few
meters ahead, backed the car to right in front of the gathering crowd and
stepped out to help. The girl and the guy were definitely dressed for an evening
out and much to the surprise of the three friends, this couple payed heat to the situation and stepped in. They had a car and they volunteered to drive
the old man to a nearby hospital. They said they were locals who lived in the
vicinity and knew their way around very well. So the three took down the car number and the cell phone number of the couple and then handed over the old man to them.
After the couple
sped off to the hospital nearby, the girl got a call from the Police helpline saying they were now sending a cop to the scene but the cop needed
help to locate them. The girl said rather disappointed, “It’s ok, you didn’t
turn up when we needed you guys, there’s no point now. We don’t need the cops
to protect us, we can protect ourselves quite well.” After taking down the
verbal testimony from the girl, the police never bothered to call her again.
They simply went to the hospital and followed through with their usual useless paperwork.
Now tell
me...had these three friends just ignored the old man or stayed ten feet away
from him like the rest of the crowd, his head might have been squashed by a
speeding vehicle that night. Had the couple not stopped and offered their help,
the man may have died of the heart attack on that sidewalk itself.
Should we still say that “the younger aaj-kal
ki generation” is irresponsible or too heck-care and laid back?
I think if we -and by we I mean my generation - are sensible enough to respect another’s life over our own pleasures, We are
responsible beings, and We deserve as much respect. So what if our
hair hasn’t grayed with life's experiences like the generations' before us.
Experiences come with time, but I think virtues are inborn. Virtues- That, we surely
do have (exceptional discretion to be pardoned). Give us our rightful time
instead of intimidation. We may even “surprise” people and start acting on these virtues and principles. Itna bhi mat kosa karo yaar...
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