It was another ordinary day when a Mahendra Bolero innocuously drew up to a toll booth on the Gurgaon expressway. The young boy manning the booth as usual stretched out his arm for the stipulated toll fees, a measly sum of Rs. 27/-. But the driver refused to pay and insisted that he be allowed to pass through uninterrupted. Ensued an argument! The heat rose measure by measure. In the course of the stormy debate, the SUV owner casually took out a gun and started toying with it playfully. The booth operator had a second thought and decided to let the vehicle go. He did so but the satan-on-the-wheel had already cooked some other plan in his crooked mind. Before making a hurried exit, he fired point blank at the young man. Writhing in blood and pain, the boy kept crying for help. However, his urgent summons could not penetrate through the closed glass booth. By the time aid could be fetched the boy had bled to death.
Horrific! Gruesome! But not unheard of or rare in the Capital! A few years back in Rohini a lady was brutally murdered on the spot because she had the gumption to point out to a few hoodlums that they were deliberately breaking the traffic rules. The headlines splashed red as the Dailies blandly called it another instance of road rage.
However, reading about these gory incidents one cannot help but wonder what makes people take recourse to such extreme action at the drop of a hat. Is patience so fragile in today’s times? Is it the result of the mounting pressure of jet paced city life......so much so that a feather stroke appears to be the proverbial last straw? Or is it just another manifestation of our increasing intolerance towards fellow human beings? Even if it is one of these reasons or all of them taken together, does it any way justify the heinous crimes which are being committed on the spur of the moment without batting an eyelid? Questions are many but answers are few and less than satisfactory.
The other day a well dressed owner of a luxury car picked up a row with the in-charge of a parking lot of a mega departmental store. The bone of contention - a nominal parking fees of Rs. 30/- per vehicle - which the car owner just did not want to pay. During the course of argument, the “gentleman” did not forget to let the official know (and in no uncertain terms) that he was well-acquainted with certain illustrious families of the Capital. While public parsimony could be laughingly attributed to the growing inflation, I would not be surprised if psychoanalysts raked up a deeper desire of the masses to woo fame by the damnedest means – if not by deed then just by attaching oneself to the rich and the powerful; dropping names and blowing one’s own trumpet to the auditory unease of those unfortunates around.
In the final analysis, all these are glaring examples of the inane tendency of the public to flout rules and regulations and disregard the law of the land. Might is right is the dictum of the day. In a society where the moral police almost every day cry hoarse about the ill-impacts of burgeoning corruption, reforms seem like distant dream as carnage slips into become the by-word of urban life.
A populace marred by weakened moral fibre, a society plagued by degenerating bonds of kinship coupled with a government distraught by inner factions and political friction undoubtedly make for a stricken portrayal of a nation in transition. How are we to combat the growing ills and evils of a disparate society when we fail to nurture or conform to a humanitarian approach or ideology in our day to day life? How are we to build a strong nation when we cannot respect the very foundation of democracy – the people? How are we to defend our borders when we cannot give ample protection to human life within the country? How are we to call our country free when the freedom of the aam junta is endangered at every step?
Or is it again the case of misplaced blame? Is Nature once again up to its own trickery? Is again the economics of demand and supply at play which graphs the equation – an increasingly dense population automatically devaluing human worth?
Think about it................
