THE ACCIDENT

The road blurred into a haze… buildings and buses melted and melded into the road, like paints in a picture swirling in water. All I could hear was a voice in my head that said “go left !!” and I did, but he was still coming at me. He didn’t look like he’d be able to stop himself. I wrenched the steering hard to the left and the car ran off the shoulder into a cloud of grit and dust. And yet he kept coming at me and crashed right next to me by the driver’s side-view mirror. The mirror broke on impact and I braked hard.

Everything around us had come to a sudden stop. The swirling roads, buildings and buses had become straight and dead again. The buses, people in the buses, in the streets and in the shops, they were all frozen and rooted to the ground. I was in shock. Though uninjured, I was terrified. I didn’t know what to expect. Slowly, I turned and looked at the broken pieces of glass shimmering in the winter sun and the crumpled bundle of sheets and woolens as it slowly stood up and dusted itself. It was a young boy. I didn’t know what to feel. Should I be concerned and worried for his well being? Or should I be angry with him for running into my car in his mad rush and breaking a mirror? After what seemed an eternity, but what must’ve only been a couple of moments, I did feel something. It was relief. I was relieved that the boy was fine; relieved that I wasn’t an unwitting instrument of someone else’s misfortune or death. And relieved that that there would be no hospitals, police stations or courtrooms to visit. I opened the door and was about to step out and dispense some well-meaning advice to the kid when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was AB, my colleague, friend and fellow traveller. He had his hand on my shoulder but he wasn’t looking at me. No, he was looking out at the back and as I followed his gaze, I saw through the rear wind-shield a sight that curdled my blood.

Men, scores of men, bristling with sticks and sickles, in turbans, blankets and shawls, were running towards the car with a sense of purpose. In the blink of an eye, I had to decide whether to stay and negotiate or flee (I hate using that word but…). I’d done nothing wrong. I knew the boy was fine. Logically speaking, it was I who deserved compensation for the mirror or at least an apology. But I also knew that the crowd bearing down on us wasn’t in the mood for logic. AB made up my mind for me. He whacked me hard on the back and screamed “Go… go… go…!!!” I put the car in gear, the engine responded and even as the boy stood up and peered inside the car, we sped away. The horde followed us for as long as it could, brandishing their sticks and sickles at us. As the distance between us grew, some even pelted a few wayward stones at us, but we were too far ahead.

We knew what had happened could’ve been far worse. The kid could’ve been hurt. We could’ve been hurt. The car could have been damaged. We were very lucky. And yet I was feeling sick in the stomach. We had just fled the scene of an accident, howsoever minor – I wasn’t proud of myself. “But we didn’t have a choice…” AB retorted. And yes, looked like we didn’t.

I replayed the sequence of events in my head. We were driving on this broken back country road that led to Alwar. A Rajasthan Roadways bus heading in the opposite direction had stopped further up the road. People were getting down from the bus and most of them were crossing the road from in front of the bus where they were visible to oncoming traffic. But this kid and two of his friends just popped out from behind the bus just as we were about to cross it and were tearing down to the other side without stopping to look right or left . I veered off the road to avoid them and yet one of them couldn’t stop himself as he ran right into the side of the car. So, you see I didn’t run into him, he ran into me, and though I would’ve felt far better if I could’ve stayed to help, the aggressive crowd scared us away. Nothing much I could do, I guess.

Now here’s what happened next. Further up the road, at a police barricade, we were stopped and questioned. Someone had called up the check post and given our number and told them of the incident. Miraculously, some relatives of the boy had appeared who wanted ‘compensation’. I was all for sticking to our guns and not giving an inch since we’d done no wrong. AB wasn’t so sure. In the beginning we were threatened with cases and worse, but we’d seen that the kid was fine and so were ready to fight it out. It was a question of who blinked first. Eventually the cops lost interest and the relatives softened their stance. They just needed some money to tend to the child’s wounds. Apparently, it was our moral obligation. We too had tired of arguing and thought it would be pointless wasting anymore time. So, we offered a few hundreds as a ‘goodwill gesture’ and said it was all we were willing to ‘help’ the boy and his family with. The cops and the ‘relatives’ mulled over the ‘off er’ and then with some healthy persuasion from the cops, agreed to settle the issue. They even wrote a letter to the cops that said they were grateful for our help and had no complaints. And with that we wrapped up a rather unpleasant episode in my life.

That was more than a decade ago. Yesterday, while reading the papers, I was reminded of the same incident when I came across the story of a popular pop idol and his friends being roughed up and assaulted in Mumbai after their car hit a two-wheeler and injured the two riders. Now, this isn’t a pedestrian/two-wheeler versus car driver debate for we are all one or the other at various points of time. And either party could make a mistake for whatever reason. An accident is usually just that – an accident. The point I want to make stems from the advice those cops gave me when I asked what one should do when a mob gathers and turns hostile. Now do keep this in mind if you happen to be involved in an unfortunate incident like the above. He said, If the crowd turns hostile, not only would you be unable to help the injured but you risk getting thrashed, even lynched. And your car could be battered, even gutted. So, the best thing to do would be to leave the place immediately and then inform the police as soon as you are out of range. That’s the best you could do”.

Sage but sad advice. On two occasions in Delhi, I’ve had the opportunity to help accident victims. And I know from experience that there can’t be a better closure to something as terrible as a road accident than to take those affected to hospital and see them recover… where gratitude replaces a grudge, even if that grudge is misplaced. It would be sad if an aggressive crowd bent on meting out its own version of vigilante justice, mixed with manifestations of socio-economic repression and ethnic or even religious prejudices, prevents people involved in an accident from helping those who are hurt. Time is precious in such situations and if a party has been guilty of rash, negligent, dangerous or drunken driving, of course the driver should be brought to book, but only after the injured have been attended to.

So you might have to run away from the scene and a mob today if involved in an accident but you better report to the cops and call an ambulance as soon as you’ve got some breathing space. And for those who run our schools, I think you owe it to society to teach our children how to behave at the scene of an accident, as those involved or as onlookers.

And lastly, a lot of aggression at accident sites perhaps also stems from a lack of faith in the judiciary; from a belief reinforced over generations that the drunken truck-drivers and spoilt rich kids in fancy cars will always buy their way out of trouble so they are made to pay here and now. And I fear that no matter how much we try in our schools, as long as justice is delayed and denied in our courts, we’ll have to keep running away from an accident instead of running out to help.

I leave you with the hope that both you and I will have the courage to do ‘the right thing’ if the moment comes… and above all, walk and drive safe.

WARNING: PEPPERONI SPOILER!

No, its not that pigs are an endangered species. Not most kinds anyway. On the contrary, they are prolific breeders and no matter how many get poached, porked, baconed and sausaged, there always seem to be enough around. So, why on earth would I be wasting a whole page and all the time it would take you to get through it on these poor porkers? Well, because it’s the holiday season. And what better way to start one than to atone and repent. More pigs are slaughtered at this time of the year for your epicurean pleasures than any other, and while there was a time I loved pepperoni pizzas and cold ham, I stopped. In fact, I gave up eating pork long before I gave up other forms of meat. And I did that because of an incident that happened many years ago.

I was driving through one of Delhi’s easternmost corners. It must’ve been the height of summer and I remember driving past a slum cluster on one side and a busy market on the other with the windows rolled down. The air-conditioner had gasped its last and I was in a hurry to get out of the oppressive heat when I heard a scream emanating from the very depths of hell. It sounded like a bunch of school kids screaming their heads off in a great fear and even greater pain…a sound so human and yet unearthly. I just had to stop. I parked and half walked-half jogged past the stores and sheds into a clearing… a crowd had gathered. It was a butcher slaughtering piglets in his backyard…

The pig’s squealing was the butcher’s way of announcing to the area that fresh meat would soon be available. The butcher’s knife was working its way down the pig’s belly, cutting it open as the intestines spilled out. One of the pig’s legs was still kicking. I don’t know if it was still breathing…but I looked away. The sun was bearing down. And in the heat, the swirling dust was just beginning to settle, like a frenzied dancer, having twirled round and round in circles finally tiring and slumping on the floor. There were flies everywhere, on hands and faces, on flesh and faeces, on blood and butcher. My eyes wandered to the slaughtered animal’s now lifeless form. Surprisingly, the animal’s throat was intact. So, I asked a bystander how did the animal die when it wasn’t even bleeding from the throat? Was it beaten to death?

No, no, it was nothing half as humane – pigs apparently are a little tough to kill and so they truss it up, and then heat up an iron stake till it’s smoking red and then take it right through the pig’s rear end. Impaled on the stake the poor animal wriggles and writhes and suffers unimaginable agony till it dies a horrible death. I was told this method made the meat tender. Death must have been liberation indeed for the animal that had by now reduced to chunks of flesh, fat and organs. The butcher now rose and walked towards his left . The crowd followed him and as I followed the motley bunch, I realised they were walking toward this little pink piglet that had been lying in the dirt. It must have sensed why the butcher was walking towards him and struggled to escape, but it had been tied up and though it squealed and struggled all it could, the ropes held fast.

The butcher put down his carving knife and picked up the stake as his assistant bent down to hold the pig. At that moment the pig stopped squealing and looked up. For a brief moment, our eyes met. Then it looked at the other men briefly, with eyes that begged and accused in the same glance. Then with a near audible sigh, dropped its head with what I could have sworn was a sense of resignation. It wasn’t squealing anymore and its body seemed limp even as the butcher’s assistant tried to truss up the animal for the coup de grace, as if the animal was willing itself to death before the pain rammed home. I don’t know what it was – the reproachful look in the pig’s eyes, the horrible death that awaited this sweet little creature, or the horde surrounding it, baying for its blood, but I just couldn’t stand there and watch it happen. So, I turned and walked away…

Almost that very minute, I heard the pig let out a terrible scream. It was almost as if it was calling out for help. I clenched my jaws and tried to pull away but my feet were frozen. The squeals were more earnest now. I had to do something, but what? I couldn’t possibly convince them into not killing the animal. I was a pork eater myself, and God knows how many piglets would’ve suffered such a death before ending up on my plate. But I knew I had to do something. I turned and ran, muttering a prayer and hoping it wasn’t too late. To my relief, the piglet had not been ‘skewered’ yet and so I hurried to the butcher and said, “Maro mat! Don’t kill it, sell it to me.” The butcher, a small swarthy man, seemed a little startled and could quite believe his ears. So, I repeated the offer, all the while hoping I would have enough in my wallet. The crowd seemed disappointed, but the butcher was happy enough and we spat and shook hands on rupees 500 for the marked animal.

I cradled the creature as it shivered in the heat and gently nuzzled the crook of my arm. As it nestled close to my rapidly beating heart, I began to wonder, what next? It couldn’t of course stay in the house. These pigs grow too big to be urban pets. And so an animal shelter it would have to be. I drove it to Frendicoes, a well known NGO that does all it can for animals that suffer on our streets. The little porker clung on and just wouldn’t let go. It broke my heart to leave it just when it had begun to trust me, but I didn’t have options.

I went back home and read up all I could about pigs and was stunned. Pigs aren’t just the dirty, fat slobs they are made out to be. They’re in fact quite bright. They can be trained to play videogames and have oft en beaten humans, at their own game, so to speak. They are almost as quick at learning commands and tasks as apes and monkeys and a lot smarter than dogs. I read about pigs that had saved people and children from drowning during floods, and I read about pigs that protected their owners from dog attacks and burglars. We, humans and pigs, are similar enough on the inside for there to be talk of organ transplants during medical emergencies. And interestingly, cannibal cultures had oft en noted that pigs taste the most like humans.

I started thinking of the piglet as a pet and indulged in a fantasy or two about the things we’d do in the days to come. Next morning, I planned to visit the piglet before going to work and thought of a name for the little one. Just as I was about to leave I got a call. It was from the shelter. “Your pig died last night. I’m sorry we couldn’t save it. It must’ve overheated in the sun, or in your car, before you brought it to us.” It was a strange empty feeling. Somehow, I felt I had let the poor creature down – I felt responsible. I had to make up. I couldn’t think of ever being responsible for the cruel death of a creature as capable of love and pain. I swore never to touch pork ever again.

Since then, I’ve given up meat altogether. But I haven’t atoned enough. This story is another apology to that little piglet and those that have gone before him. If you, dear reader, are a pork-eater and this story makes you reconsider, it would be a small step for both of us towards making up for our many murders.