Down the Drain..

Abhishek’s drowning has become a symbol of all that is indifferent and uncaring in Bangalore. The buck that passes, the shoulders that shrug, the pen that slides over paper, and the defensive voice that says, ‘gothilla saar, its not my responsibility’ . The child was 5 years old. He was walking in the safest place possible – holding his mother’s hand. And then the heavens opened up. The mother who has let go her child’s hand for a minute because she slipped while on slick road in a raging rain , is never going to forgive herself or forget . It was just a second. And she never saw him again.
Can you imagine a child being sucked in to the subterranean hell under the road, in a vortex of powerful eddying waters in a drain, filled with plastic, rats and garbage? One moment, the heavy raindrops are falling on his face, and he is probably huddling closer to his mother. The second moment, he slips and a yawning chasm swallows him up, while water fills up his lungs , and he never sees the dark sky again .
But perhaps Abhishek and his mother took grave risks. They should not have been out, walking on a Bangalore road. Insurance companies will now shift Bangalore as high on the risky cities list. They should have crept indoors in a nuclear shelter the moment that it rained. Instead they did what most others would have done. Like the security guard, and a couple on a scooter who also drowned that week. Drowned while doing the simplest thing in the world. Going- back -home.
So we now must be careful . Not while serving the country on the border , mind you . Or testing new fighter jets. Skydiving . Being a trapeze artist. Being on an oil rig. Being a fire fighter or a policeman.
We have to be afraid all the time. Doing any of these things:
Standing . Sitting. Walking. Getting into a car. Crossing the road. Farming our land . Being in a bus.
Are we going to look surprised and confused , be unprepared every monsoon , every summer , for drowning , electrocution, road accidents? Every time. Every single darn time? Sorry. No can do. Even rats learn by experience. And cockroaches.
This happened because one underpaid employee or unconcerned malcontent decided to leave home early , closed his eyes , yawned , walked past unfinished work, and just didn’t care . Chose not to care. Left early to grab a coffee with friends. Had a cigarette break with colleagues on the chouraha. And did not cover a crater on the road, close a drain , or disable a live wire . Just that once. A human life is too expensive a mistake to say, ‘Regrettable . But its part of the game’. ‘It happens’.
It’s not.
Its manslaughter, plain and simple, and whether it is the department or the person is culpable, let them own up . Its dereliction of duty. If an army person leaves his post during the war, he is tried and court -martialed for desertion. And what happens to our fatcats at the BWSSB or the Bangalore Corporation, or the BEST? I am tired by people telling us to get involved. Could the government be active in doing just what its supposed to do ? If I did their job, I may neither be able to make a living, nor deposit taxes to pay their salaries. The government will sit back happy while citizens like me , a part of the so called community partnership come in on Sundays and cover drains, plant trees, fill up road craters while they find more to criticize and even less to do .
The Government has to do their job, and nothing less. As a citizen, I demand a minimum level of infrastructure , and safety , and nothing less. I am tired of the word ‘the authorities’. ‘The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people’ said Frank Kent. So its time we should get really intolerant. For the authorities, doing a job cannot be that hard. If they are paid a salary, and get a pension, why are they always finding excuses?
And what about us? Its about time we should take some control of our own lives, and demand what Abhisheks mother lost out on . A simple measure of basic provisions. Of safety, security and dignity. And public servants and the authorities better take care of ours as well. That’s what they are paid to. Twice over. Paid over the table, and sometimes under it.
Little Abhishek paid twice over too.
It’s a shame.
Shame.