I was at the level crossing. The gates were closed as a train was approaching. Among a crowd of cycles, scooters and motorbikes, there was a Tanga—a two-wheeled cart drawn by a single horse, commonly seen in the northern states.
After the train rattled past the crossing, the gates opened. Predictably, all the vehicles darted ahead. However, the Tanga on the opposite side of the road retreated straight with its horse clip-clopping a few steps back.
In no time, the harness got detached and the cart, together with the occupants in it, tumbled down the sloping edge and fell into a drain. My heart skipped a beat and I stood there frozen.
The occupants of the cart, including two men and a woman with her child held close to her bosom, soon came crawling out. Seeing this, some of the pedestrians stooped into the drain and stretched a helping hand.
When the coachman, who had jumped out of the cart, and was standing beside the equine was asked the reason for the bizarre incident, he merely replied it was, after all, an animal. It went beserk and there was little he could do. The man tactfully took the blame away from him and the horse.
Before the gates were to close again, I continued my ride to the city on my motorbike.If a similar incident were to happen today, how many would care to get down to the drain and extend a helping hand to the victims?
Recently, I was privy to a horrible incident. A man fell down to the road from the raised platform of a metro station. He was lying in a pool of blood.
Although the sight drew a lot of people, most of them were interested only in recording the scene on
their smartphones. Nobody took the initiative to rush him to a hospital.
When accidents happen these days, people are more eager to pull out their smartphones and record the visuals than rush the victims to the hospital. This is despite the Supreme Court ruling banning the interrogation of the good Samaritans by the law enforcement agencies.
Where is the compassion for a fellow human being? Have we become less smart in this age of smartphones?
H NARAYANAN
Email: nanan2105@gmail.com