Insanity, stupidity - a communal perspective

Day before yesterday I saw a shocking incident... Now, I've seen Hindu Muslim riots before my eyes, and I've seen Godhra happen. But I would attribute those to mob mentalities in general. I have only heard, but never seen racisim / communalism happen before my eyes.

So I was standing at a traffic signal on IIM Junction, Ahmedabad and a rickshaw with a Muslim driver drew up beside me. A guy got down from it (in his fifties perhaps) & blatantly refused to pay the rickshaw driver!!! In addition, he started hurling abuses saying: " I won't let you enter Vastrapur again... I am a Kathiawadi, I will kill you..." and all this with hundreds of expletives in between. The rickshaw walla (in his sixties or seventies) was bold enough to give back verbally.

But there's more... The passenger started hitting the rickshaw wallah!!!! He smacked him 4-5 times while the rickshaw wallah kicked about trying to loosen the guy's grip. A few people tried to get the passenger away, but the signal had gone green & vehicles started moving about... I was too shocked to move, but left the scene as everyone around was honking like crazy.

Sadly, neither me (shamefully), nor the cops (who were hardly 10m away & watching), nor others around stood up for the rickshaw wallah. I experience tremendous shame as i confess witnessing this shameful act in front of my eyes without doing anything about it...

Are we even humans? Is this the way to treat a fellow human being? Are we taught this, or learn this somewhere? What drives us to this? It is all so stupifying.....