ORDINARY PEOPLE ARE THE ULTIMATE VICTIMS!

Dear readers, happy to meet you through my Blog after a long pause. Sometimes I am forced to believe that it is a sin to be born as a human being. Every one of us talks about human rights. But the problem is we talk, talk and only talk. This is an incomplete post. Let me come to the incident directly.

It was nineteenth August 2014 The world humanitarian day. As my daily routine I was commuting from my home to Loyola College. I got down from the train in Beech railway station and looking for someone to help me to cross the track in order to catch Thambaram train which used to get me down in Nungambakkam

Usually I don’t sit in the train if the distance is very short. Therefore I was leaning on that iron wall which is near the entrance. After realizing the arrival of people, I moved inside but the wall was sufficient for me to lean. The train departed from the station. One passenger came and stood on my left. All of a sudden I heard a heavy sound which was literally over taking the usual noise of the train.

I could sense that it was sound of fallen mobile. Undoubtedly in the train! I gradually turned my face towards the left. I realized that the person who stood on my left has dropped the mobile but not on his own. Instantly he bent and took it back but the sound continued. It seemed like somebody was beating someone. The person, who was on my left, dropped his mobile, started leaning on my shoulder.

“Don’t you have sense? Senseless dog! What you would have done if I had fallen out of the train?”

The voice came from the same side but not from his mouth.

Initially I thought that it would be the funny fight between friends or college students.

“Sorry brother, I am extremely sorry, I didn’t do it deliberately.”

Replied the person who was leaning on my shoulder and his voice gave me an idea that he could be a college student.

‘Why is he calling him brother?’ I asked myself and came to a conclusion that it may be ragging.

Again I heard a beating sound but this time it was heavier. The lad who was leaning on my shoulder was beaten up I savvied.

“Who are you man? Who are you? I will tear you in to pieces.” Said the man was beating.

“Sorry brother, sorry, honestly saying I didn’t see you at all!” replied he while still leaning and defending himself. But that person was not ready to forgive him and continued his brutality through offering a slap. This time he lost his balance and fully reclined on me I managed to bear him. After a slap, the offender continued,

“How dare you can do this?”

Then I thought they cannot be the students of same college rather different colleges.

His voice became feeble and replied,

“Brother I didn’t do it intentionally, in fact I didn’t even notice you, please forgive me, please, please, please!”

“What please? What please?” He pushed him towards me and continued his scolding.

“If I had fallen then that’s all! I would have found your address and made you unknown!”

But this boy didn’t protest him rather kept on apologizing.

“Brother, truly speaking I didn’t see you, pardon me, pardon me, and kindly pardon me,”

I thought everything was over but once again the victimizer started from the beginning. This time unexpectedly used a vituperative word.

”You b------“he scolded and abused him with   another slap.

I thought he would retaliate now. Unfortunately instead of that,

“Brother, please leave me, please, why are you keeping on beating even after I apologized to you” the lad asked very politely without moving away from my shoulder.

“You bloody dog! What would have happened if I had fallen down?” he continued and kicked him which I could easily sense since the victim’s shoulder was brushing my shoulder.

It seemed that he was deliberately thinking the incident repetitively in order to beat him.

Dear readers I am not exaggerating anything here. Believe it or not, without getting angry he replied,

“Brother, I don’t know what to do, why are you beating, I apologize for what happened. Please forgive me and stop beating.” Like me, many passengers were standing in the compartment and unheeding the incident. They were just watching the fight and not willing to stop it. What to do? Everyone became blind like me at that time but the only difference is that I had the cane they didn’t.

The train stopped in Chennai fort. There was a silence made me understand that something happened positively. One of them asked the lad,

“What happened?”

He freed my shoulder and replied. I understood that the victimizer had got down from the train.

 “Unknowingly my hand hit his head while he was entering in to the train. I kept on asking him to forgive me but he kept on beating me.” He continued, “What am I suppose to do? I just unleashed my hand from the door and it hit him.”

“While he was beating, you should have strongly asked him no ‘why are you beating like this?’” the other passenger asked him.

“What can I ask him? How can I ask him? He is a cop and beating me even for apologizing.”

I am reminded of my human rights class in which the professor said, “no police has the right to torment the culprit, his duty is just to arrest.”

I came back to my home after the class. As usual I was discussing this incident with my father and brother and said that its violation of human rights. But my brother replied very calmly

“Who will listen to you?” and continued.

“One week ago, a person was running in order to catch the train in Aavadi. Accidentally he dashed a girl. But she went and didn’t take it seriously. A policeman saw and called him. He didn’t ask anything and started hitting him wildly nearly for fifteen minutes. The whole station was replete with educated people but no one came forward to stop him and said that it was an accident because he was a cop.”

My father said, “we can say that no policeman has the right to beat the suspected culprits but they would say ‘he tried to escape’ even if they don’t! What else can we do?” finally he dropped his last sentence,

“Ordinary people are the ultimate victims!”

The question was echoing inside me after thinking of many incidents. “What else can we do?”

I leave the rest to your experiences.