A tiny speck of the paper was all the boy’s passing received; a pillion rider taken from his parents and this beautiful world by the mean streets of Goa. Just another statistic to most, chalking it up to nature thinning the herd, survival of the fittest. Unlike all the balls the ‘gaffernment’ has up in the air, road safety and the bare necessities like motorable roads don’t seem to be on the RADAR at all. I implore the far-from-discerning public at large to remember that you are at war every time you step out on the “roads”; to make peace with your Maker because unless you drive a tank, you could be the next victim in the battle for supremacy gross negligence and rash driving are waging.
The other day I saw a kid on a Dio, definitely under aged, overtaking three abreast, with a giant tablet on one shoulder, racing into an intersection. Later I witnessed a Jeep whose driver seemed to be attempting to break the land speed record in reverse gear! With these homegrown suicide drivers and roads that seem to have been imported from conflict-ravaged Syria, we are indeed in a sickening war of sorts. To the kid on the Dio, and all the other would be kamikaze motorists flying by, I say think before you drive. There are forces at work on these blood and brain splattered streets, voices that call like sirens to simple sailors, urging them to their untimely deaths on the rocky, haunted cliffs. I was 16 when the first of seven friends succumbed to his injuries; the eldest of 3 brothers, he had fallen off his bike while talking on a cell phone. Close on his heels, two best friends, both in their final semesters at college dashed into a road divider as a tourist vehicle blissfully stopped on the Highway. They both died after a struggle for life in the ICU days later.
Next to go was a friend who had just come down from the ship; the dreaded Green Park hotel junction. Another only son was snatched in a late night crash when a tyre puncture at high speed slammed him into a wall. Two friends of mine from college followed suite, the first deliciously irreverent but loyal to a fault; the other an incredibly talented dancer and the hardest worker I have ever known. The former died in a bus mishap, the latter had his head caved in by a car overtaking from the wrong side. Its been almost 9 years since doctors told me, on my birthday, that what was then a barely imperceptible limp was untreatable. I transitioned from being the first guy on the basketball court to hearing girls in college snicker as I staggered by.
The roads don’t care if you’re a stud or the apple of your parents’ eyes; use your heads and all your senses, don’t break the law, don’t undo all the hard work your parents put into your upbringing, switch your phones off when riding/driving, keep it under 50kmph, wear a helmet even if you’re walking !
