CrossRoads:

Few weeks down this day, I was back in my village for the first death anniversary rituals of my late grandfather. Being a teen of a sub-urban town the village backwardness has engraved a loath in my mind ever since I became of the age for the simple reason that the regular morning chorus is severely affected due to the lack of sanitation facilities. One has to depend upon the lone public river for the water needs to be fulfilled. While the right bank was the bathing ground, the left green carpet served as the ‘shit-field’, a dirty public toilet ground heavily rooted by bushes. For a boy, like me, of the sub-urban, it’s not at all a first-rate take off for the day. On my only bank visit, this time, to the river bank (which actually was the male ghat) we were visited by a few college girls in uniform descending down the downhill, trying to cross the stream. Yet again for a sub-urban fellow this was reason enough to turn red and dive deep to the river base to hide the nude body till the intruders pass through.

After experiencing a dreadful start, yet I was in search for a silver lining on this black day. Quite ironically, the sky was overcast with thick black cotton sacks. Couple of hours later my entire family was seen bent low by the burden of errands of the function. Age group of 5 to 85 took active part in making the day reach its conclusion sans whine. When my 17 was running down the road between the two epicenters of activities, I noticed that the main cross-road of the village was over crowded. That road was the only way in and way out to and from the interior and introductory village sectors which included the main market, the bus adda, the railway station and the roads leading to bordering villages. Stories of an accident reached me and it rushed my pace to witness the dead. On reaching the spot, it became clear that indeed an accident had taken place where the victim was no more than 2½, crushed under rear wheels of a tractor. Although the corpse, or whatever was left of it, was removed and a log was placed and ropes were cross tied across the lane, the life line of the entire village was crippled.

Police was informed of the matter but there wasn’t even a sole sign of red-lighted jeepsi until there was a threat of another man, the tractor driver. The man was caught and was tied with the log kneeling down. People claimed 5 lack compensation in cash for the family. People weren’t able to go out of the village neither a single vehicle was allowed to rush in. the people we had invited for our program had to park their vehicles a mile away in the fear of being crushed under the village rage and then had to walk the distance. Hours later when the matter was solved after the late entry of law keepers and lawyers, the final compensation received by the family was 3 lacks from the tractor owner and the driver arrested for trial.

What baffled me so much into typing this out is that I wasn’t able to take a side of glad or poignant. I couldn’t decide if I should be proud that my village had the sense of unity so that a family could at least gain a peck out of the grieve or should I be ashamed of the way the few people crippled the whole village for several hours when the matter could have been solved under the walls of the village ‘thane’.