The big city was offline for two days. As I travelled back from office in the middle of the day, my thoughts went back to another similar incident. Different city, different people involved, different time of the day - but the result was the same. Nothing to eat.
That's right, for single men (or men forced into singleness when the wife is out of town) food becomes an issue whenever something like this happens. Everything just shuts down. The speed at which it happens is amazing; by the time I reached home all shutters were down and the good folks of the locality were already igniting the tyre-heaps. Fortunately, this time around I had a semi-stocked refrigerator at home so it wasn't really all that desperate a situation. But that other day, so many years ago, there was nothing. We lived on a day-to-day basis as far as food was concerned. And with the saints prowling in the area, it wasn't safe to leave the house. Nor would it have helped because all the joints were closed.
Let's face it: as far as we know it was an accident. Regrettable loss of life, grief and mourning for some, or many. But regardless of how many felt unhappy, I don't know what purpose is solved by burning tyres on the roadside and forcing people to shut shop.
Even more shocking were the suicides. The shutdown may have served some political purpose of which we are unaware, but how does ending one's own life help? A one off case may be explained away, but dozens?
We live in a strange world.
No comments:
Post a Comment