Driving yesterday at Dadar/Mahim, I had just crossed Sena Bhuvan signal towards Bandra. I was the first off the block and as I entered the road, I had to gently come to a halt. A truck was stationery blocking the road, and a motorcyle was fallen next to it.
It was almost 630pm and dark, and hence I could only guess what had happened.
An accident. It looked like this had happened less than 15 seconds ago. As I waited, crowds started converging on the road, and within seconds the road was swarmed by people.
As I waited, I was amused and irritated, that cars next to me had started honking. ….I silently turned off the engine, and let DMB take over.
(DONT READ BEYOND THIS, IT REALLY GETS VIOLENT….UNLESS YOU WANT TO)
5 minutes later, some smart folks in the crowd cleared a bit of road on the side, and allowed us to drive through slowly.
As I passed, I could see, a young lad, his head completely crushed by the “rear double wheel of the water truck”. His head was still under the wheel.
Nobody seemed to be checking for his pulse or if he was alive. The driver of the truck had obviously run away.
Two observations:
1. In this case, common sense seems to suggest that the truck driver had a little or no error. How else do you explain a head under his rear wheel. What possibly happened was the mobike skidded on his left and the guy unintentionally came under the truck’s rear wheel. Yet a potentially angry mob, drove the truck driver away to seek his own safety.
2. My own numbness to the whole incident as I drove past, was perplexing. I did not feel a thing. I was more worried about reaching home (had already been driving for around 1 hr by then). The others around me, seemed even more numb, they were almost infuriated by this incident, honking loudly and making their displeasure felt.
We tend to forget that if we apply six degrees, then this guy was at least connected to 50 other human beings, if not more. Someone close to him will miss him today and for a long time to come.
In Mumbai, life is steadily getting cheaper, and death is just such a lousy waste of time :-(
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1 comment:
ten years ago at the lower parel naka just after dawn mills and as you got onto the bridge - what i saw i will never never forget and the sight comes back to haunt me for ever and ever but reading your post brought it all back again not that it ever went away
a young man had been knocked down on his cycle by what i do not know but the back of his head must have received the blow for the front of his face was proof besides the smashed head eyes popping out oh god you can imagine the rest but what shocks me most still that i drove on as must have so mnay before me and after me for it was obvious the hit had hapenend a while ago
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