A ROAD ACCIDENT:Essay

A ROAD ACCIDENT

Now, with the Indian population shooting up to 1.2 billion, there is always a crowd everywhere and traffic snarl at all intersections. Besides, the number of vehicles is also more. This leads to accident, involving mostly 2 wheeler.

Last week, while I was going to school in my cycle I pulled up at the danger signal on the way. A long ribbon of vehicles stood dotted there. The traffic cop waved all the vehicles to move away to extreme left, because a 2 wheeler rider, very badly injured, was laying sprawled unconscious, bleeding profusely from the head injury. His bike lay a few feet away from him.

But there was none to render a helping hand! Even the cop had ignored him. What irked me was that, there was an ambulance parked near the pavement. It was meant to rush the accident victim to the hospital. Yet, why did the traffic cop turn his blind eye to the hapless victim, instead of putting him in the ambulance van and rushing him to the hospital?

I wondered how I could be useful to him. I looked around at the big men. They all stared at the victim, exchanged a word with the other and remained unmoved. When big and grown up men remained tight-lipped, what could I do? I felt sorry for the victim and mentally prayed that he recover soon.

Then I heard the vehicles’ horn blare. The signal showed green. Thus, I was forced to go ahead. Back at home, when I told my father about it, he said, “You are a small boy. You do not know what the reason behind it is. The idea is to let the man bleed to death, and then they will send his corpse to the hospital and inform the victim’s relative.

“Meanwhile, the victim who is already dead due to excessive bleeding will be moved to the ICU under the pretence of treatment. Finally when his relatives arrive, they would say ‘sorry’ and squander at least one lakhs of rupees as the so-called treatment charges!

“This is how this chain of brutal people acts. They are hand in glove with one another. But many do not know this. These fellows are the disgrace to our nation!”

Now I am beginning to learn about such barbarians; a wolf in a sheep’s skin.