From dozens of hospital visits over the years, the most heartbreaking scene that I have witnessed remains an old mother wailing outside the Emergency /Casualty room for a son or daughter wheeled in after a road accident.
Relatives surround the mother, afraid of telling her, avoiding her eyes by looking elsewhere, dealing silently with their own grief - a combination of missing the departed and seeing the plight of the mother who has had the very air taken out of her.
Unfortunately, it is a scene that is invariably played at every visit. Such is the devastating toll road accidents take in India. And unfortunately, most happen because someone is speeding, going the wrong way, or not wearing a helmet or seat belt. Little, trivial things that save a grand total of two or three seconds yet amount to a lifetime of sorrow for the mothers who remain.
Nothing will change by this post as thinking one is bullet proof is part of our upbringing. Most parents themselves teach their kids 'chalta hain' and by demonstrating the same atrocious behavior. Setting them up for a moment in the future that they never imagined possible and was always supposed to be a newspaper story about someone else's kid.
Get into a good college, getting a job, save money are the major problems that occupy the mindspace for majority of our citizens.
Till that screeching of the brakes, the shattering of the windshield, that call from the hospital, and that moment outside a glass door when a doctor approaches shaking her head as relatives embrace you in a meaningless hug.
#india #roadsafety #thatwriterfromindia #gauravparab
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