Indifference!

It was a few weeks ago when I was on my way to my shuttle point heading off to work that I came across something which disturbed me A LOT!..So much so that the image is still imprinted in my brain.

There was a woman lying on the side of the road in the dirt. She must have been a labourer, maid or lower class, in her 40s/50s. At first I thought she was drunk. But then I realized something wasn’t right. Her saree was thrown off her, her blouse looked out of place and her petticoat/lehenga was pushed up till above her knees. I tried not to think of the worst and convinced myself that perhaps she just fainted or perhaps she really was drunk. But then I saw the big blue bruises on her chest, stomach and face. I couldn’t ignore them! What’s worse was that there was some dried up white substance near her mouth. I didn’t know what to do. I was REALLY confused. Should I approach the traffic cop who was standing at the RTC Colony crossroads and inform him? Should I call the cops? Should I ignore it?

Funny how some people when faced with a complex or uncomfortable situation don’t know how to react instantly. I am unfortunately one such person! I was still thinking and hardly five minutes must have passed when my shuttle came and I boarded it. At the same time Sriram called me from UK and I hadn’t spoken to him for weeks. I spoke to him for 20 minutes and was still feeling lousy about not doing anything for that poor woman.

I then called up Pratheeksha one of my bffs and started talking to her about it. By then half an hour had passed. She tried her best to make me feel better by telling me that it’s too late to do anything now as too much time had passed. Informing the cops wouldn’t be the right thing to do because they’d just question me and perhaps even blame me in some twisted way! Yes, unfortunately such is the justice system in India. Even those who are innocent bystanders get accused and blamed for a crime they didn’t commit. Which needless to say scares the crap out of the public to do the right thing!

Anyway, Pratheeksha told me to try and forget about it. Hopefully someone must have seen that woman and done something about it. It was after all a pretty crowded road…Almost like a highway! But I couldn’t shake that guilty feeling off. I knew if I didn’t try something I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. So, I called the Trimulgherry police station! From my cell phone (not the wisest of decisions now that I think about it)!!

Thankfully the man who I spoke with was quite nice. He took the details about that woman and the exact location. What relived me was that he said he’d send someone right away to help her and they’ll take care of it. So, I breathed a sigh of relief but still felt lousy about that woman. I confided about my bad mood to one of my friends at work who logged in hours before me. She told me she had seen the same woman on her way to work(my friend’s house is in Alwal so her route is the same as mine). Since she was in a moving car she couldn’t tell what happened but realized that a woman was lying there. She assumed the woman’s drunk!

It was then that my fear came true. That poor woman must have been dead. It was hard for my untrained eye to figure out if the discoloration on her body were bruises or her body decaying. It was so bloody hot and God only knows how long she must have been lying there! It broke my heart to think that NO ONE did anything about it. I was very tempted to call and do a follow up about that woman to know if she was okay. But I was warned to not do it because the cops will again point their fingers at me for taking too much interest for a stranger and that I may in some way be involved in all this shit!

So, I scanned the papers, watched the news, waited to see a picture or at least an article about an unknown woman being found dead. I didn’t see or hear anything about it. There are many such cases I guess which go unnoticed.

But in all of this what hurts me is what a selfish and self absorbed world we live in. A fellow human being is in dire need of help and no one came forth to offer assistance!...I’m no saint either and I agree I had a lot of apprehensions but at the end I thought screw it! What’s more important for me is my conscience. I do however wonder if I would have been able to bring about a change if I had reacted instantly…If I had not boarded that shuttle…waited around till help got to her…not waited half an hour and then call….Would it have made a difference?... I guess I’ll never know! :S