It was one of those regular mornings, as usual got up, half sleepy, managed to brush teeth, take a bath, put some formals on, picked up my shoulder bag and started my lazy stride towards the Bus Stop. It takes 10 minutes for me to reach the bus stop, the bus was on time and I managed to get my usual seat, 3rd row to the left, the one towards the window. But this particular morning I was pretty tired due to the extra curricular activities that takes place in the night...:-), the seat next to me was taken by a girl and after about 10 minutes of sitting in the bus it was time to go. I was quick to fall asleep, as soon as the bus started to move, this is when things go interesting, just after bus passed Sholinganallur, the went through a bumpy region and my left arm resting on the arm rest, slipped and fell towards girl's side, of course I didn't realize this but I felt a nudge in my forearm and I woke up, it was a bit blurry for a moment as I couldn't make out what was going on, then I realize it is my arm.
I turn to my left and I was pretty surprised and a bit shocked by what I saw...the girl on my right was doing the "Sign of the cross" (she was a Christian of course), next thing that came to my mind was "Holy Cow!!! Have I done something terrible...I was sleeping, and my hand slipped, it was an innocent mistake, it was no sin...Damn!!!", I was about to apologize, just when the bus put on a sudden brake, pushing me from from my seat. It definitely shook me enough to loose the rest of my drowsiness and I was pretty alert now, Then it clicked, we were on a collision course with a vehicle and the driver was trying to avoid one.
Me being seated near the window didn't have a clear view of the road ahead, so I looked out of the window and then I saw a bleating kid of a goat half air borne going to the right side of the road. For a moment I though that it was the last time it was going to walk on the face of earth, fortunately it wasn't dead, it was still moving around and crying in pain.
Then I realized that the girl beside me was paying for the well-being of the goat, thankfully I was not the reason of the cross. But then this incident did bring up some bad memories of the driving behavior of people in Chennai. Given two points A and B, people just want to get from A to B in any way possible not even thinking of the consequences of their action. Hurting one's self in this process is bad, but it is worse when you hurt somebody else. Once back during the training days, my bus was passing through Adayar and was waiting in a Signal, and what I saw across the road was pretty shocking, I saw a boy going to school along with his friends and they pass a junction and then this car comes (you can make out that the driving was pretty rash) and takes a turn towards the boy's direction taking him down, and I remember seeing the wheel going over the calf-muscle region of the boy, I have no idea what happened after that since the bus moved away. But this was the kind of driving attitude that I have seen around Chennai, there are numerous other instances too but this one was pretty unforgettable. What did they do to deserve this?
All faults cannot be directed towards the individual driving, it can also be attributed to the condition of the roads, lack of traffic control, but be it an innocent animal or a fellow Human Being, it in no way gives you the right to hurt them or take away their life for the mistakes you commit.
