Not Human Enough?

In 1982, my mother was hit by a truck on her way to the school where she taught. The driver fled and a man who was driving a jeep, thankfully stopped, picked her up and brought her to the hospital and then somehow found a way to get in touch with us. I remember being driven by my father to the hospital on his scooter, hysterical with fear. And when we met her rescuer in the hospital corridor, his shirt was soaking wet with her blood. She was in the hospital for a month and still has a scar that reminds her of the way she was cut open and stitched back.

The man who hit her was never found. The one who rescued her could have driven past her but took accountability for an accident he had not caused. I don’t even remember his name but he saved the life of my mother. Over the past few weeks, I was reminded of this again and again as a few survivors of hit and run accidents  blogged about the ordeal of paying for someone else’s carelessness.

One of these voices belonged to Charudutt Acharya, the director of Sonali Cable who recalled how in October 1998, at 2 in the afternoon, “not too far from American Bakery, a young woman from Pali Hill (incidentally, the daughter of a film industry bigwig) rammed her car full speed into the auto that I was travelling in. The auto turned turtle. My left leg was an unrecognizable mess. The auto driver, miraculously scratch-less, extricated me from the auto. The young lady and her friend, who had got out of the car, saw the mess, sat back in the car and took off.”

A gym instructor picked him up and got him to the hospital. Two and a half months later, the cops finally tracked down the girl. Writes Charudutt, “She came to see me at home where I was bed ridden. She said she fled because she feared the people on the streets will do something nasty to her. I asked her why she did not go to the cops. She  said nothing. She gave me a bouquet of flowers, cried a bit and left. She was never convicted.”

Charu had three more surgeries and has, “never walked straight since. This accident cost me. Professionally, financially, emotionally and psychologically. But I have been bloody lucky to have a support system and professional work to do. Needless to say, poor people get screwed really bad.”

The point he makes in his blog that went viral is that, “There is a HIT and there is a RUN. A hit can happen due to various reasons including elevated levels of alcohol in the blood. But a run happens when there are elevated levels of inhumanity and arrogance in the blood. A run happens when there is confidence in a corrupt system to back you up. A run happens when you know that money and ‘Bhai power’ can ‘settle’ things. Salman Khan ran for 13 years. He first ran from the accident site and then did all money and power could do to keep himself running.”

The case says Charu, “is really not about drunken driving. It’s about shameless, cowardly running. A macho star running from the ghosts of victims of a ‘single -screen’ class that subsidizes his stardom, and a shit scared, spineless film industry running to absurdly defend the star who subsidizes their 100 crore clubs. So each one of you who is expressing rage over this verdict and standing in solidarity and support for Salman Khan, picture this. You were at American Bakery buying jelly pastries for your near and dear ones at home. You step out and boom! A drunk Salman Khan knocks you down. Your one leg is a smashed jelly pastry now. He gets out, looks at you, sits in his car and f…s off. For 13 years you go through operations, implant failures, infections. And you keep going to court for hearings where all the time the large hearted human being Khan says he was not at the wheels. He does not even recognize you. Maybe he even smiles and waves at you thinking you are his fan.”

Gaurang Shah, a Mumabikar also posted on Facebook, the story of his brush with the impervious irresponsibility of Bollywood. He recalls, “In 1989, I was hit by a speeding vehicle driven by a 13 year old Meghna (Bosky) Rakhee Gulzar. She hit and ran, leaving me unconscious on the road with 11 fractures on the face and skull. I went through three major surgeries, loss of work /time and a huge amount of stress. Gulzar visited the hospital,hugged me, promised his best as long as I don’t make a police complaint. The middle class Gujju family in awe of the celebrity and the patient who couldn’t think straight agreed. ‘I fell off my bike and no one’s to be blamed,’ I told the cops. Expectedly (heartbreakingly, because I was a big fan), Gulzar never showed up. Just like Salman, here’s a shining star of our country who simply bought silence from a gullible family, turned his back on them and ran. How many such skeletons the rich, famous and bhais must have buried away? “

This is not the first time that a powerful man has been treated indulgently by law. Mukesh Ambani’s son ‘allegedly’ ran his Ashton Martin over a few people, killing two but no trail could pin the crime on him. In 1993, Puru Rajkumar (the son of actor Rajkumar) ran his car over eight people in Bandra West, killing three. He of course fled the scene, leaving some of his victims still stuck under the wheels. “Puru Rajkumar was never jailed and walked away from the crime, after paying a little less than `1 lakh, for killing three and crippling one person,” reports blogger Soumyadipta Bannerjee who was possibly the first to report how mysteriously and tragically Salman’s body guard Ravindra Patil had died.

It is a miracle that in a country where opinion can be bought, influenced and marketed, there are dissenting voices like Charudutt, Gaurang and Soumyadipta that show us the real cost of casual ‘mistakes.’ Mistakes that maim,  scar and kill human beings who somehow are not human enough to get justice.

 with The New Indian Express  Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of  Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and  where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and  just be silent with her cats.