Personal social responsibility

It was a lazy evening.I was getting back home after spending some fun time with my niece. I was just turning into our colony when I saw a small girl running here and there on the pavement and screaming non stop. No, nobody stopped to ask her or even look at her for a minute to assess if there is something that needs to be done. Cars and scooters and pedestrians carried on as if nothing has happened. The kid crossed a roadside vendor, an elderly lady who used to supply 'keerai' to my house.The old lady also did not bat an eyelid. I was going to cross the road when I saw three boys on bicycles passing by and they stopped and asked the girl what does she want. She was incoherent and inconsolable. By this time I crossed the road and her mother also came running and hugged the kid. The boys moved on. It appeared that the mother had just stepped into a roadside shop and the kid not realising that mom was not with her, walked up further and then hell broke loose.

I accosted the 'keerai' lady and gave her a bit of my mind. You are a woman and the kid was screaming in front of you and you were more keen on selling keerai than worry about the kid, I told her. She said she saw the mother and daughter pass her by hardly a few minutes back and did not think that there could be any the matter. She brushed it aside thinking that the kid was being adamant and making a fuss for getting some toy and stuff. By this time the mother and daughter had moved away, the mother tightly holding on to the kid.

Mothers should curb their basic instinct to shop anywhere and everywhere, I said to no one in particular and walked away.

But I was quite agitated that public just dont seem tuned into their surroundings and become deaf, mute and blind and uncaring about what happens on the road. Police maintaining law and order together with vigilant and responsible citizens can only make for a safe neighbourhood.