Heroes in Waiting ...

The daily grind instead makes cowards of us ..

I come back home, and the silence near the security area , instead of the usual welcoming leap and bark of Bonzie the community pup who was stolen earlier this year , hits me . Its been 3 months and my heart tugs worrying about where and how she is . I have called to remind the police station , have re – sent mails to friends and relatives with the picture . The " Pup Missing’’ poster with her bright eyed picture ‘ is faded and peeling near the building entrance. The mobile rings and I focus on the call, and I walk through my front door .

I haven’t followed through enough , and that reminds me what a coward- in-waiting I am .
As I get older, I see daily tragedies of incomplete opportunities, of incorrect prioritization, and the sadness of " I should have ". Knowing doesn’t change the reality , knowing that you do what you can, not what you should.

Do we view ourselves as essentially kind and decent people ?You can be good , do the right thing , but do you follow through ? Does experience make you nervous, cynical, resistant, lazy about going out of your way ?
I don’t know.

When I was 11 or 12 , I ran up to a teenager in a tonga who was mercilessly whipping his pregnant mare , while the wounded animal whinnied in pain. In rage, I yelled at him to stop , and when he didn’t , I caught the whip and hit him instead . Abuses and threats followed and he moved away quickly when my mother emerged , but stayed within visual range long enough for me to see that he was taking it out even more vengefully on the horse . I can still see his grinning face at the end of our road . I knew that the horse was going to get a further whipping later . And that was a realization that it wasn’t black and white . Righteousness could be misplaced, slayed dragons would breathe fire again . I was crushed – but maybe I should not have been so impetuous in my anger at the unfairness of it all . I felt I had done right , but the mare was the one who paid .

The same thing happened with animals that passed our old house , being taken to the abbatoir . I just could not understand how cruelty was being heaped on a animal that was going to die anyway . I had my moment of rage , but the owner would just hit harder when I was out of sight . There was a little I could do .

About 10 years ago , when I heard a young maid at the house behind us , crying bitterly etc, I intervened with the nice mother of two, that the little girl had some rights too , and she should not hit or abuse her . After a couple of chats across the two bungalows, I stopped hearing the cries, and was glad that I had been assertive on this . I was wrong . My maid told me that ( possibly mortified and angered by my interference ) the family simply sent back the girl to her village. Her father was very poor farmer with 8 children, and could not afford to feed her , and she was sent to Bombay with some relative, and like many others , was never heard of again. Intervention, righteousness and do – gooding, said my maid Why didn’t you just let it be. At least she had two meals a day , and a safe roof over her head . I hear the unsaid reference to our Ivory Tower , and I cringe inside .

The little children at traffic signals, the drooping druggedl ittle heads lolling from their ‘mother’s ‘ arms , dangerous trapeze acts or sometimes simply begging are especially difficult to handle . I see a 3 year old crying bitterly , but with his hand still stuck out , weaving dangerously between vehicles , pushed further by his older ‘brother ‘, who is maybe 7 years . The familiar helpless anger comes over me as I look at the tear streaked face of the boy , and I roll down my window ( A five rupee coin held ready though) and yell at the brother to stop bullying the toddler and take him back to safety . The signal changes and the car pulls away . My head is skewed back to see them, and I see the brother using the steel ring for his circus act to hit the tyke on his back . He catches my eye , grins, and hits him some more . Rich Memsahib has a voice, huh ? But woh kya karegi , she’s gone now right ? Yes, I am . And after few minutes of familiar clenching frustration, my mind glances away to focus on the appointment I am delayed for . Cowards in waiting .

But that evening , I see a TV advertisement for a publication , showing a familiar traffic jam , honking vehicles and frustrated commuters. The politician predictably finds a way to slime out of it . Alone. A small , curious school boy works through labyrinth of vehicles ,and finds that a fallen tree trunk straddling the road is the culprit . Others slowly join in when they see the determined youngster and in the pouring rain , it is fabulous to see the magic of collective action ( if not me, then who? ) . Needless to say , the tree trunk is collectively shifted , the traffic moves, and there is a happy ending . My heart lifts .

And there are heroes in waiting – quiet ones who just believe what they believe . Daily dal-roti heroes . Yesterday I read about a van filled with dogs enroute to Hyderabad ( to be made into something disgustingly called bow-wow biryani ) being noticed, chased down, and apprehended by a couple of animal activists who turned them into the police. I notice the names of the persons who chased them down . I know one of them . She is a tiny thing , soft spoken and perhaps one of the gentlest persons I know . But this woman saw the suffering dogs , and pushed herself to chase down and take on 3-4 men in the van . And she succeeded . She rescued the dogs, got the police and corporation attention and went back to her life of daily quiet heroism . Kudos, Sujaya .
I haven’t found the answers, and I admit its too uncomfortable to keep searching . But I want to hear of the Sujayas , the schoolboy with the fallen tree. Coward-In-waiting , I want to hear stories of courage of conviction, because who knows, one day , I might get it right , too .