What Options I Had?

Scene 1-

National highway- beautiful cloudy weather

An old man, with crutches, is trying to cross a busy square near the outskirts of a city on a national highway. A big Scorpio car stops and gives him way, from one side. Another car (driven by me) stops and gives him way, two trucks slow down to give him way but from one side of the road…no one is stopping……. That old man is in dilemma what to do and how to cross the road….

By the time I thought of leaving my daughter in car to get out and help him, a Sikh gentleman from that Scorpio car comes out, stops the speeding cars coming from another end and helps him cross the road safely.

I smiled and said thank you to that Sikh Man and his wife, who were kind enough to help an old man.

Scene 2-

Crowded street of Malviya Nagar, hot weather, Delhi

It was a busy day and road was jam packed with cars all around, hardly any space between them even to cross the road.

I am keeping grocery in my car (properly parked in a parking space with my daughter and husband waiting for me at a nearby electronics shop) and suddenly hear a thudddd sound.

A black i10 hits a white car in the front. An angry middle aged man comes out of the white car and grabs the young boy of the black car by his collar and starts beating him. The whole road was chaotic and people stopped to watch this drama. No one intervened, few I saw even using mobile phones to record what was happening.

 I thought of intervening but realised that angry man might hit me too as no one was even daring to talk to him to settle the issue and he was using all kind of filthy language.

Then that angry man grabbed the boy from behind and held him by his belt and almost pushing him , kind of dragging , took him to the near by police booth. I immediately followed him from behind, looking for an opportunity to talk to that angry man to calm down and don’t beat the boy.

Then when I reached closer to him, something guided me not to interfere and I turned away and reached to my family.

Told them everything and how helpless I felt for not helping the young boy. The shopkeeper, an old Sikh uncle told me, you did a good job Beta  by not getting between them as in todays’ time no one has any respect for another person when they are angry and let that young boy find his own solution, as he doesn’t seems to be so helpless. (that young boy was well built wearing the tightest jeans and t shirt he could get his hands on…i mean a typical dilli wala gabru )

These two incidents, within a week, gave me a glimpse of how humans behave and how our environment affects our thinking.

We can be kind and compassionate and we can definitely be cruel and angry, it all depends upon what we are feeling at that moment and what are our expectations from the other person.

That Sikh man helped the old man to cross the road without any expectation and the whole scenario on National highway was peaceful as weather was good too.

On the other hand the angry man , already a chaotic road- busy day, could not control his feelings may be because he was already stressed or suffering or he had some expectations that he might be compensated well  by that young man…I do not know.

What I also realised that we want to be helpful to people, but with terms and conditions, where we feel that we will not be harmed in doing some random kind act. And that was me…I feel bad that I could not do much in both the incidents.

I shared this post because it is disturbing me.

You may not see much in this post but I will be thankful if you can help me to analyse these two situations and what best I could have done.