The disappointing result of a mid-November Gallup poll on the issue of expanding access to healthcare has compelled some of the Americans to question if callousness is enough to describe the apathy. Lee A. Daniels, a columnist who belongs to the famous Harvard community was so sad and outrageous that he is in favour of adding 'hypocritical' and racist to the epithet in order to express current American nationalism. Unfeeling indifference is not enough to convey the mood sweeping the United States.
Now all this comes to mind in the context of the fall of a three or four years old boy into an abandoned 14-inch diameter tube-well pipe several hundred deep at Shajahanpur Railway Colony.
A new tube-well was being sunk there but without sealing the mouth of the abandoned one. The drama that followed kept people in suspended animation for long 23 hours.
In the meantime, though, the tiny soul's father was made to undergo an ordeal at the hands of the police who had the presumption that it was just a made-up story, the purpose of which was to draw media attention.
Is 'heartless', 'repressive' enough strong words to shed light on the dark reaches of police mind? At a time when the boy's parents needed each other so much, he was confined in the local police station and was denied food for long 16 hours. The less said about the ministerial misjudgement the better.
Here is a tragic event that with its many dimensions really exposes the national character of the Bangalees. True, common people with no relation to the victim's family responded admirably to the emergency call.
Even the Fire Service and National Defence made valiant attempt to rescue the boy. No question about their sincerity. But in moments of such urgency mere eagerness to help is not the answer.
There is need for a cool head on the shoulder. The group of young boys who eventually pulled the body of the dead child out of the pipe demonstrated what it takes to make things happen.
When the government agencies had abandoned the rescue operation, the group of about 16 young men arrived on the scene. And within 15 minutes, they accomplished the task which the government agencies could not do in long 23 hours.
One gets the impression if the group of innovative youths got a chance much earlier, may be, just may be, the child could be pulled up alive. Whether he would have survived is however a different proposition.
Falling into a rusty pipe with water and at a great depth of several hundred feet in hostile weather certainly diminished chance of his survival. The youths, moreover, had to wield their ingenious iron cage or trough.
It had to be exact in measurement in diameter so that it entered the pipe unopposed but caught in its hook anything that lay there. Also there was no question of giving them the priority, particularly when Fire Service and government agencies known for such missions were present.
So it is not premature to conclude that the moment the boy made the fatal step, he was doomed forever. So how it happened is not important, the most pertinent question is why it could happen.
Callousness of outsize proportion reigns supreme in Bangalee society. When yawning ditches are left open for months, buildings built or demolished right on the footpath without taking enough protection against falling bricks or debris, there is every chance of a stray brick or chunk of mortars falling on one of the passers-by.
And it does happen causing death to unsuspecting people. Or else, how can one explain the repeat fall of garters of foot over-bridge or flyover? The garter of the foot over-bridge near Science Laboratory in the capital came down on a car, killing its passenger. Then the garter of the flyover in Chittagong killed no fewer than a dozen when it suddenly gave in.
These are callousness at its height. The inferno at the city's Nimtoli has failed to relocate the chemical business from the crowded old parts of Dhaka. As if all are waiting for another such disaster to unfold! Considering the destructive capacity of chemicals, there was need for moving fast with the plan to shift the chemical godowns to a safe place. But it did not materialise.
What needs to be realised is the potential danger from things left unattended or action that could be avoided. Footpaths were supposed to be thoroughfares for unobtrusive walk but not only are there gaping holes in the most unlikely corner or right in the middle of them but also hawkers leave little space for walkers to negotiate.
Alongside cars parked, construction materials or garbage dumped, the new addition of infringement is by motor cyclists. They even honk for passers-by to make room for them.
Indeed callousness of small proportion has its blow-up effects as indicated by the tragic death of Zihad, the hapless boy from Shahjahanpur colony. No callousness is insignificant when it has the potential to take life. Zihad has met his life's end at a time when he was playing with his friends.
For a boy of his age, playing game -any game, is exciting and ecstasy. And how cruelly that ecstasy was turned into tragedy! All because of someone else's callousness. It is because of this, the nation needs to pull its socks and plug the holes so that death does not make its unwarranted visitation like it did at Shajahanpur. Let's say goodbye to callousness.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
