Looking the other way

How often have you looked the other way? How often have you witnessed something that disturbed you, but you walked past as if all was fine with the world? And when will you stop looking the other way?

Possibly when you stand at the center of an incident. But looking the other way will still be an option. You could walk away from the confrontation or you could stay and fight. Both, I assure you, would come with their share of consequences.

I was pick-pocketed yesterday in the bus. Rather attempted pick-pocketed. The man, short and lean, hardly in his 20s, could not get away with it. He was caught red-handed, beaten by the passengers, and made to get off at the next stop. Thanks to me and my big mouth, every living soul I came in contact with during the day, got to hear about my adventure. 

But soon my adventure stopped feeling exciting and started feeling life threatening.

Here are just a few reactions that I got:

• Don't do this ever again!
• What if he had a knife?
• What if you were surrounded by his gang?
• Don't take the same bus/route for at least the week to come, they might keep an eye-out for you
• You should have let go of the money. It was just petty cash.
• You can afford to lose 50 bucks. But that guy probably needed it more than you can imagine.

The list could go on with a lot of variations of the above reactions. Here is what I had to say:

• I will do this every time; not just for myself but for anyone else who needs help.
• If he had had a knife then he would have been told some good use of it (knife don't scare me)
• I was in a moving bus when the incident happened. His gang couldn't have been bigger than the crowd in the bus.
• That is my regular route to office. And I refuse to change it. Stubborn as it may sound to many of you, I can't imagine telling my boss that I won't be coming in/will be late for the next week because some idiot on the bus tried to pick-pocket me.
• No, I shouldn't have let go. I work hard for that 'petty cash'.
• I can possibly afford to lose 50 bucks. But I refuse to believe or encourage the thought that every one who is in need of money is turning into a pick-pocket.

The fact is that we are so often fed on stories of crime that we forget the stories of victory. I am not blind to the fact that there could have been dire consequences to my action. But I refuse to look the other way and pretend that life is normal. 

No, it is not normal. It is not normal when children are kidnapped in broad daylight, it is not normal when men and women are mugged in crowded streets, and it is not normal when people block the traffic to watch an accident scene but no one moves to help.

We are no longer 'social' beings. We have turned in to a spineless species and are harbouring a generation of cowards. Don't fight, don't get involved, don't speak up, don't live at all. And then when we stand at the center of a disaster, we complain that no one helped. Why will they? Would you have?

Why do we forget that crime is not born out of strength, it is born out of fear. And by being scared we are feeding the monster every single day. Generations have been brought up on stories of good vs evil where good always wins. But through the maze of all those stories, we forgot a vital lesson - good did not win because of some divine intervention, it won because it decided to FIGHT evil.

Instead of teaching us to be scared, if only someone taught us to fight, to stand up, and to never give up.