Train runs over 15 migrant laborers in Aurangabad!
The news started appearing early morning on 8th
May 2020. Nothing unusual about this in a country of 130 Cr, with thousands of
unguarded level crossings, the train runs over trucks, buses, tractors loaded with
people with frustrating regularity.
Finding people crawling under
the level crossing barrier with the train barely meters away is a routine human
behavior we have seen for ages and have accepted. Sixty onlookers of burning
of a Ravan effigy event got trampled as they chose the track as their vantage
point on this occasion.
I personally never had any sympathy for the people who fall
victims in such situations.
That is India! Where the behavior of people would surprise
any man with a minimum IQ. The land where each street provides a thousand
opportunities for a photojournalist. The magnitude of the problems in this
country is too big and the problems in your own life are not few. You are
taught to be philosophical. You are conditioned to hearing such news and to
flip back to your own life a few minutes later.
COVID has forced us into our homes – the only shelter to
escape the invading virus and the overzealous state which is out to protect us.
It has taught to only think of us, our family, our money, our business. It also
has taught us to stay positive and to distract our minds from thinking too much
about the impending danger and the complete uncertainty. We watched reruns of
the old TV serials, learned to cook and clean, learned new skills, connected
with associates across time zones over zoom calls. We broke generation gaps, gender,
and technological stereotypes. We have rediscovered ourselves.
We are alive fighting our battles
in our world.
The details of the accidents start trickling in through the
day. A group of 20 migrant labor mostly in the age group of 20 to 35 working
in a steel factory in Jalna near Aurangabad, were rendered jobless because of
the sudden lockdown, they chose to return to their homes somewhere in Madhya
Pradesh. With no public transport in place and with no permit to cross borders,
they chose to walk on the railway track which would lead them home and let them
evade police and the check posts. They walk overnight, fatigued, sleep on the
track thinking that to be safe. A goods train runs over them, killing 16. Some three escape
as they were bit farther from the track.
They died fighting their
battle in their world.
The picture of the bloodstains, strewn Rotis, used clothes,
worn-out sandals on the track gave us a peek into their lives, their hopes, and
their aspirations and how small they all were. How small! Both of us are
fighting. But how different are our battles! How different are our
battlefields! How different are our issues and challenges! How different are
our hopes and aspirations! How different are our worlds!
But it was supposed to be one
world.
Next time when we bake a cake and the network breaks
preventing us from uploading it to Instagram; let us remember that our cake was
their roti which never got uploaded.
We are actually conditioned to go by such incidents until it happens with some near and dear when others are conditioned to go by our incident. We as a country are never one, fragmented saved by Himalayas, Seas and Bays
ReplyDeleteTrue..
DeleteScripting is just what is expected out of you. Heart wrenching piercing into the very deep corner of the heart to give us this great realisation how privileged we are sitting in the lap of safety in our homes. Unfortunately still we crib over the flimsiest of things, complain for not having a proper connectivity or why the govt has shut down liquor shops. We are basically ungrateful creatures. Yet the grateful ones who are satiated with the least become victims and are crushed under such untoward incidents. They neither hv a fb or an insta account nor the resources to garnish their lives with excess. It's so ironical how humans are destined!
ReplyDeleteThank you..
DeleteYes, it was supposed to be one world. But how different are our battles. How different are our issues and challenges. Therefore, our worlds are different.
ReplyDeleteKudos to Jagdev for his insightful and heart warming analysis !
The worlds are so different..
ReplyDelete