Appreciating the value of life

So, yesterday I was coming back from work in the company cab along with a few other colleagues. As usual, it was during the peak Bangalore traffic and I was going mad with worry since my parents are here and I wanted to be back with them as soon as I could. I was already feeling very guilty about leaving them at home whilst I went off to work for the whole day.

Anyways, whilst we were stuck in the traffic jam, we heard the faint sound of an ambulance trying to weave its way through the traffic. The sound got louder and louder and then I turned behind to see the ambulance two or three vehicles behind ours. We were crawling through the traffic and had no place to pull over to let the ambulance pass by. I was getting uneasy, and praying for the traffic to clear so that the ambulance could pass by us and get to the hospital quickly. There were all kinds of thoughts in my head… about who would be in the ambulance right now, what state would that person be in and the tension that his family would be going through and adding to it was this slow moving traffic.

Then we stopped at a traffic light. The sound of the ambulance was deafening… and I was getting more and more impatient and worried. My colleagues and I were discussing about how to get the cab to pull over to the side so that the ambulance could pass our cab and a few other vehicles and atleast move ahead.

But then we noticed that even after 5 minutes the traffic wasn’t moving. We looked ahead to see that the junction was being manned by a traffic volunteer and we were even more puzzled as to why he wasn’t letting the vehicles pass by given that everyone within a one mile radius could hear the ambulance. Our driver honked a couple of times and then the other vehicles also realised and honked as well. Even then, the volunteer wasnt letting the vehicles in our path move ahead.

I couldn’t hold on anymore and a colleague and I ran out of the cab towards the volunteer to yell some sense into him. Only to see that the poor guy was stuck in the middle of a circular jam with a bunch of vehicles surrounding him and rushing to move ahead before the others could.

We were appalled at this lack of a conscience on the part of these car owners. Did they not hear the ambulance? Did they not feel even a twinge of concern at the plight of the person inside the ambulance? Don’t they even stop to think that one day they could be in the same ambulance trying to get to a hospital? Is there no sense of humanity left in this world at all?

I understand that we are an overpopulated country and probably do not value life as much as the people in developed countries do? But isn’t that the irony? On one hand we talk about how friendly our people are and how we care about our neighbours, how we do not want to get influenced by the so called “western culture” where people apparently are self centered and do not think about others around them. And then, on the other hand, we cant even stop to appreciate the thought that a suffering person needs to be reached to the hospital immediately? All we are concerned about is reaching to our destination as fast as possible without a thought of what we are leaving behind in our trail? Have we now become so ruthless? Is this the path to development and prosperity?

If it is so, then I am afraid, I do not want to be a part of it. I would rather live in a village where people still care for each other, still stop to ask about your well being. They may not be as prosperous as the city inhabitants and maybe a lot more superstitious and narrow minded. But atleast their heart is in the right place.

So anyways, along with a few other people who stepped out of their cars, we managed to clear the traffic and let the ambulance pass by. I only hope that it reached the hospital in time, the patient managed to get the right medical treatment and is on the path to recovery.