RELIGIOUS PROCESSION AND THE OLD MAN WITH ARTIFICIAL LEG

19th of Oct, It was a wonderful day so we decided to go out. Shopping was one of the agenda. So we decided to go to a famous market. While approaching the main street of the market I noticed a lot of police and these worthy policemen were diverting the traffic. On a Sunday when markets are full, diversions are painful. I am used to staying in green areas with clean and broad roads so felt a bit uncomfortable with the diversion. This diversion was because one religious procession was heading towards the famous religious place on the same street. One side of the road was blocked and was purely allocated to procession.

Traffic jam was obvious, with snail pace I drove the car and was apprehensive whether we will reach in time or not. Suddenly the snail also stopped. 15 minutes and nothing would move. I tried to peep out and check what is stopping this traffic with all those policemen and pointsmen on the road. Another 10 minutes nothing moved. On the other half of road the procession was in full swing, holy chants alongwith everyone munching something and most of them talking on cellphones. I decided to have a look on the chaos which was stopping this snail pace to a halt. Just 4 cars ahead of mine I saw an old man who was trying to cross the road from the procession side to other side there was no place to cross so he tried to make use of small space which was created due to broken railings. Due to rush of procession and in hurry to cross the road his artificial leg got entangled in the broken railing.

More than 3000 people crossed from the procession chanting Holy verses, 100 cars crossed taking a slight detour saving the old man, the traffic stopped because one car while taking a small detour hit another car on the left. They were busy fighting and the old man was busy trying to take out his leg. My car reached the spot. I stopped came out(much against the wishes of my better half) and helped the old man. It took precisely 3 minutes but in these three minutes there were more than 10 people in cars who were abusing me for stopping my car, there were more than 30 who were honking(abusing in fact with continuous honking) there were all these religious people who were chanting holy verses as if no one can see or hear anything else. The old man thanked and went, A police inspector came and thanked and said “Saab, it is daring to do such a thing when sentiments flowing so high”

Sentiments flowing high??? What rubbish… No one could come and help an old man….everyone was happy waiting for 30 minutes but could not spare 3 minutes………many questions came to my mind.

What if use of chanting Holy verses if we can not help an old man?

It wasn’t wrong to stop to help an old man, why was everyone abusing?

I don’t think I will ever get answers to some questions……

Tags: human values

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