KAKKANAD: Today being Vrischikam 1, I, along with my mother and two sons aged eight and seven, went to the Thirkkakara Vamanamoorthy Temple in the morning. That has been a family practice and we did not want to break it this year.While returning from the temple in an autorickshaw around 8.45 am, we were waylaid by a different kind of ‘devotees’ at the Collectorate Junction at Kakkanad. They sported saffron rakhis and sounded angry.
One of the ‘devotees’ shouted at the driver for daring to take the autorickshaw out on a hartal day. I intervened and tried to explain to the angry devotee that we were returning from Thirkkakara temple.
“KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT,” he snarled back at me, with his pointed finger just millimetres away from my face.
Shocked at the abuse and shouting, my children hid behind me in fear. I tried to reason with the aggressive protester and asked him what’s wrong in going to the temple on an auspicious day. But he was having none of it and was behaving as if I had attempted to trek up the Sabarimala. They dared the driver to try and move the autorickshaw an inch forward. It was not an outburst of profanity, but their words were filled with violence. Then they forced us to get off the vehicle. “Let’s see how you people will reach home,” one of them said.
All this while, a man in khaki was witness to the whole incident but he looked as helpless as we were.
His ‘help’ came in the form of an advice: “You shouldn’t have hired a public vehicle today. You see, they are not stopping private vehicles,” he said as if to suggest calling for a hartal and waylaying unsuspecting passengers were protesters’ right.
Meanwhile, another protester moved towards us and said: Maryadikku ninnal ivide ninnu pokam. ‘Be submissive if you want to go home’. I asked him what’s wrong in going to a temple. I also questioned his party worker’s outburst in front of my children. Meanwhile a group of policemen, who were on patrol, stopped their vehicle seeing us being bullied. One officer said: “We know they are indulging in violence under the garb of devotion, but we are helpless.”
Thankfully, the traffic sub-inspector, who was passing by, came to our rescue. He hired another autorickshaw and asked if we would like to file a police complaint. When I replied in the affirmative, he asked the driver to take us to Thirkkakara police station. After filing the complaint, we went home in the same autorickshaw.However, the police did not give me a receipt for my complaint. Later, after my colleagues contacted the station, an officer called me in the afternoon and said the receipt was readyHartal might have passed off peacefully across the state, but what we endured was nothing short of hooliganism in the name of protest.