This is not the man I am going to tell you about, but he might as well be, for he represents Everyman for me here in India. I use his photo frequently in slide shows and reports and though I don’t know him, I have looked at his face so often, I feel as if I do.
Look at him and think of the man I am going to tell you about.
I was traveling by taxi from Delhi to Dehradun three nights ago. We were almost home, at the loneliest, darkest part of the road – the stretch between Mohand and Dehradun. There were few cars out and the sky was inky black.
As we hurtled along, occasionally dodging another car coming down on the wrong side of the road, I thought I saw someone lying on the embankment. it took a few moments to register, then I asked Sandeep, the driver, if he had seen someone too.
He laughed. “Yeah, probably some drunk fellow or one of the village idiots. He’ll get up on his own.”
“We should go back,” I said. “Maybe he’s been hurt.”
He laughed again, incredulous now. “Didi, you must be joking! We’re in a jungle. This isn’t some foreign country. If I stop, I’ll be blamed for whatever has happened to him!”
At that very moment, Cathleen called on my cell phone. “Mom, it’s a blizzard here!” she said, excitement in her voice. She was in great spirits. She had just gotten her report card and had made the Dean’s list and her holidays had just begun. I tried to share her delight, but she sensed my distraction and distress. “Mom, are you ok?”
I told her quickly what I thought I had seen. Just hearing my own story and her instant concern gave me the strength to do what needed to be done. I hung up the phone and said more firmly than I felt: “Sandeep, we have to go back. I will take the responsibility.”
Muttering under his breath, he did a U-turn and we began the long drive (we had already gone 10 kilometers) back. I peered into the darkness stretching out before me and had begun to think I had imagined it all when I saw what was now clearly revealed as a body on the side of the road. Sandeep did another U-turn and stopped a few feet away, his headlights trained upon the figure.
I jumped out and ran to what I now saw was an elderly man. His face was weathered and lined (like my Everyman above) and like him, he was poor. He was also dead. He had obviously been hit by a vehicle with great force – his body was all crumpled up and broken and his head had bled profusely. I knelt down beside him and felt for a pulse, though I already knew there would be none.
He was wearing, strangely, a brand new pair of blue jeans and it was this little detail which practically undid me. Were they a gift from his son, visiting from the big city where he had recently gotten a job?
I was deeply aware that I was probably the first to see him like this, his body now a shell, his soul so recently departed, and I wished there were something I could do to mark the terrible event which had caused his end. But Sandeep was in a panic, practically in tears at my delay. “Didi, please, please let’s go. If they come and find us like this, they’ll say I did it. We have to go, please!”
It broke my heart, but I knew he was right. Were local people to arrive, they would surely assume we had been the ones who killed him: mob justice is instant and brutal. Were we to wait for the police, who knows what they would assume? It is a situation ripe for extortion and on a dark and lonely road, miles from anywhere, we would be at their mercy. Sandeep could be beaten, I could be raped, and we would certainly have to pay for the privilege of going free.
In any case, he was dead. There was nothing we could do for him now. I touched his cold, still hand once more, said a prayer to speed him on his journey and got in the car, torn between shame and pride. I felt terrible leaving him, alone and unprotected, but I knew too that being poor, he would understand our necessities, grim though they were. I also felt glad that we had at least come back, knowing that had he been alive, we would have done something to help him.
We drove away in silence. We had done what we could. In a better world, we would have lifted him up and delivered him into the hands of his family. As it was, we left him in the hands of God and continued down the dark and lonely road.
Jo: I don’t know what to say. That poor man, your courage and the sheer helplessness of the situation. Your words, “in a better world” say it all.
It is horrifiying to learn about such incidents, the only question rises from this is, how long we are going to tolerate our inhuman judicial system? To deal with such situations,we have no other option left other than shedding tears for helpless people. It is so sad… may his soul be in peace!
May his soul rest in peace.It is extremely horrifying to learn about such incidents,but it should only work as a catalyst for a change that is just waiting to happen.I personally feel even more motivated to work for a better India.
I was very moved by your blog about the man you found on the road. How awful for you. The experience must live with you.
It made me think about the road to Dehradun (in every possible sense of the phrase), the darkness, the strangeness of it all – I was on that road myself exactly a year ago today. Wondering how it would all be, and so full of angst. And it turned out so well; I could never have foreseen what a pleasure was in store for me.
But it also made me think of the tiny chink of Indian society I did see in that short time I was there, and how your experience reflected it. How you could be bowling along in the relative civilisation of a taxi, warm and safe, thinking about and talking to Kathleen in the States, when really there is only a paper thin wall between you and potential violence of the worst kind. And death. I used to walk along the road in Vasant Vihar in the quiet early mornings, past all those big houses and trees and gardens, get into the KV van, and be whisked into the most appalling corners of the town to pick up children. Through into an entirely different world, yet only five minutes down the road.
What an extraordinary place India is.