Believe me, today is just another day when a small section of society loses their life to something as random as a stamped on a railway bridge. Yes, it is that petty when we sit back and think but then what it cost was the life of ~22 people and over 30 others severely injured. As the news channel tell the tale of this mishap each one of us sitting in our air conditioned offices or homes, start to wonder how such a thing happened, who started running like that, what caused the chaos, why didn’t people keep calm, and so on. But, behind our backs those people standing in a stuffed environment for about 30 minutes lose patience and start pushing each other out of frustration and/or fear; and there it goes…one negative feeling to other and then to mass destruction that can never, on this planet Earth, be undone!
As always we start off with what’s the simplest thing to do…blame others and do nothing at all about improving ourselves. We will sit and blame those people who were ‘MAD’ to go pushing each other and end up losing their lives; we will blame those railway authorities ‘who can’t even manage a crowd in an over populated city like ours’; we will go blaming right to the top, including the re-development authorities to the municipal corporation to the railway minister also…it never really ends. But then again, tomorrow will be a new day and we will find all people using the same old infrastructure, exactly the same way they did today – pushing, pulling, running, etc; and we will be in our safe domains taking up another topic online on social-media and practically doing nothing about it…absolutely nothing. The lives lost will be forgotten and this event – this disastrous event – will be nothing more than a page in some records that would not be referred to again.
When I read the news on my mobile news app, I was shocked as to – how can this happen so badly; and then I honestly, moved on to my work, not realising how bad or worse or worst it was. That’s what we always do, on a daily basis. We react to absolutely any news for a few seconds and then move on. Being in an equity research profession, the only thing I react to with some serious feelings and dedicated time, is that of corporate rejigs, financial results, takeovers, mergers, and so on. Just then a friend sent me a few videos and pictures of this so called ‘stamped’ that caused so many unforeseen and cruel deaths. I…I fell speechless, not only because it was a big news, but also because it stirred me up deep within my heart and soul. You certainly don’t want to watch some 15-20 people piled up on one another of which most are dead with blood oozing out of almost everywhere. And to top it all, the one thing I really wonder and feel scared about is that people are more engrossed in taking pictures and videos rather than helping those trapped ones out of the mess.
I wish all of us could do something in life to change even 1% of this. May be we must become calmer in life to take rational decisions even in times of crisis. May be we need to become a bit more considerate about one another and those who are in dire need of help. May be we just need to stop blaming each other and start following rules with some discipline. Let us understand that some delay in reaching a location is far far better than causing such lethal aftermath. We need to deal with accidents like collapsing towers and bridges, with some patient understanding that may help cause least loss. We can try and not reach a level of wear-and-tear that such a thing happens at all.
May be we actually need to be more ‘humane’ than what ‘humans’ are today. Life is not really worth 5 paise. It is an invaluable asset and one owes a lot to several others around them in form of relationships, responsibilities, love, affection, sacrifices and devotion.
