No matter how it ends, it all begins with you - the one who matters !!!

This is my un-usual post and few readers might find it disturbing to read or simply irrelevant. But as I always believe, LinkedIn is a community in the virtual world and whatever we discover or post here is nothing but a reflection of what happens out there in the real human world.

Today I had been to my son's school to pick him up after his picnic to a local adventure park. To avoid local traffic, I had chosen to drive early and wait at the school premises rather than be the traffic. 20 mins before the schedule time, it wasn't surprising to see 20-30 other parents that had already reached and those who knew each other were already chatting around. I too found someone whom I knew and we were soon in an exciting conversation and topics ranged from how today's kids are being hooked on to digital life style to almost how powerful the 'R' language is.

Meanwhile, one by one the first three buses arrived and most of the kids left as their parents picked them up and left. It was an absolute chaos, typical of Indian culture where it is quite a normal to navigate chaos and move on. Myself and couple of parents while talking overheard that the last bus had met with an accident.

I happened to shrug off this stating that maybe it's quite a traffic time and it could have been a minor touch and go between the bus and some bike or something like that. But again someone happened to say, the bus had hit a lamp post while taking a turn, but not at all serious and soon it would be reaching. We continued our chat and finally saw the last bus entering the gate, felt quite relieved to see the kids walking out and so did my son. Our small group of parents dispersed and headed to the parking areas.

While we walked to the parked car, I asked my son what happened, he casually said, "Dad, let's first sit in the car and I will explain you". "Cool", I replied. While we started driving out of the parking lot, he started telling me and what he said in those half a minute, jolted me completely. While we were pulling out of the gate, I happened to see about 10-12 people surrounding a lady and speaking to her. I pulled the car to the side road parked it and walked to those people out there, with a hundred questions flashing through my head. In all of this, all I can say is, my son who is just 12, was so calm and visibly composed, sitting in the car. All he did was just say once, "Dad, don't go there." to which I said, "Don't worry, I'll just check and be back. Wait in the car for me.".

In that half a minute, my son had explained to me that his bus had met with an accident, it had hit a small car from behind and the local people who had just gathered there had created a huge issue of the situation and overpowered the bus driver and hit him very badly while he was inside the bus itself. This hadn't gone down very well in my mind and it was very clear that it was a complete mistake on the part of the people of beating mercilessly a driver who was driving a bus full of 12-13 year old school kids and few lady teachers onboard.

As soon as a I walked to that arguing group of people, I quickly sensed that all were local people (mostly less educated but their attire spoke a lot about their attitude and intent). I got the attention of one of those and asked politely, what happened to which the person standing next to him replied, rather in a rough voice, "the bus hit a car which was parked and there was a lady inside it" and almost everyone turned their attention to me, which is quite alarming as mostly in the peak of anger, people expect everyone to believe their story and that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Having witnessed couple of such incidents in the past, I was sure that it's better to ask the right questions and not add fuel to otherwise a boiling situation.

I further asked "Guys, but isn't it quite unfair to kick a school bus driver in the face and make him bleed and that too right in front of 30-40 students and their teachers. How scared that has left them all?".

I guess this really added fuel to fire and immediately two of the guys jumped and started defending themselves. "We had asked the driver to come out of the bus and give the license to us. Why the hell was he driving so fast on a single lane road and trying to overtake the car? What if the CNG cylinder would have exploded, it would have killed people?". One of them further added, "What if your family was in the car? Your son too was in the same bus, right?". Unfortunately, the last one become too personal for me and I had to clarify my stand to all of them.

I said, "Folks, we all belong to the same place. Yes, it could have been my family in that car or maybe even your own family in it, but seriously beating the driver wasn't right. Accidents do happen and there are ways to deal with it in a proper way, but this isn't right." I continued further "See, you all broke into the bus by force and resorted to a fight, which means you were angry beyond control, how do you expect such small kids to react, when all they know is the driver is the only one who can take them back to school where their parents are waiting. Anyway, we are all grown ups, if we can't exercise restraint, how can we expect it form such small kids. It's absolutely unfair and not right."

I don't think those hyper people felt any sentiments for the poor kids. Meanwhile, I had realised that they were waiting there to demand money for the damage done to the car (and by the way the lady who was driving the car wasn't anywhere in the picture). The lady who they were talking to was the owner of the travel agency of the buses that were hired for the day. She couple of times repeated to me that, "Sir, don't worry, I am speaking to them, I will handle it". With not much left to say and do really, I moved back to the car and we headed back to home.

My son continued narrating the incident in detail. "Dad, all the kids and teachers in our bus were screaming and crying and these people were shouting like hell. Even the lady whose car was hit was shouting at the children from outside the car, I didn't understand much but she was really shouting at us all. I think, the car had applied a sudden break and maybe the driver was bit late in stopping and that led to the dash."

We continued to chat about it for another 30 minutes that it took us to reach home. I was quite visibly disturbed, a thousand thoughts flying through my mind. How come no one was mature enough to resolve the issue without a fight? How come such a nice day had to end with such inhumane manner?

While behaviours and expressions might be different, it is very clear that every person driving, walking or riding on the roads is like a fully inflated (infuriated) hot air balloon, all it needs is a little more pressure, a tiny little prick to blow off the hot air steam.

The society as a whole is going through a tremendous pressure, extremely short tempered people are all out there and well, it doesn't matter if you are driving a two-wheeler or a top-class German car, the attitude is always the same. There is a huge deficit of patience and respect for others is almost non-existent. Honestly, I don't think there is a reverse gear to this and with time, this is going to just keep on exponentially growing.

I feel sorry for all those kids and poor teachers, who never had imagined they will have to witness such a horrific incident. How can people be so senseless and we talk about smart societies and smart cities?

I would like to reach out to everyone with a humble call to exercise patience, be aware of the situation with care and respect for little and the aged ones, look at things objectively and resolve disputes in a peaceful way. Whatever you do as adults, the little ones are going to assume that it is quite normal to react and act that way and in future echo the same, in fact in a more pronounced way.

Remember just like you, there are people who have their loved ones waiting for them, almost unaware at times of what's happening to their loved one, how helpless and fragile they could be in such situations.

Life is not easy, it's given, but at least don't be the one who is the reason for making it harder, not only for yourself but for others. No matter how it all ends, please understand that it all begins with you and what you do matters the most.

If nothing else, at least be what you are, Be Human ...