Friday, March 22, 2013

When Honking Stops !



Many times we get irritated with loud honks on road & often we ignore them. Over the period of time , we get so used to it that we never care about them ,even if it impacts our lifestyle & the fundamentals that we stand for. Only when you honk outside India , you realize this mistake . Also for people who travel to India quite often, honking becomes a source of annoyance.

In our community , Internet became a speedster ride for expression post exile and as face values within community diminished , virtual connectivity became a source of traffic to travel daily into virtual space. By now we must have traveled light years through these emails. Web forums & social media added a glare to it. In this heavy traffic , we often wont care about the nuisances of few among our own.

But as it would have, few years back a noise that would make our emotions tumble used to come from north America & it took a serious work of few community activists to train the new driver some lessons  particularly when one has to drive over thin Ice for long hours.Here in India , few people used to boast out their old trucks endangering many old walking sticks & small cars. Amateur people with big trucks would ride so loudly through these emails that even old truck drivers parked their cars aside and let them past by.

The Drunken driving through emails would often go till midnight & by morning many people would lose their well creased suits & turbans to filth & dirt.  Annoyance was noise making substance that would give them an edge to get noticed on any pretext.  One fine day while I was parking my car , an old lad came and hurled loud honks with abuses. I was requested caution & asked to ignore by senior truckers. Pity that driver who cant handle his steering but intentional honking & breaking down other cars by crashes wasn't something that would go well with me. But still to handle stress , it was best to ignore and continue the walk.

Call it stubbornness of a drivers attitude or rustic email handler but I put a SPAM filter on for long time. So my car would auto detect such traffic of this amateur driver & let it pass by. They understood & as such to gain notoriety, they utilized public bus & endangering the lives of respected good & old men of my community. Calling names & abusing women was a common trend for this driver who claimed to have driven through Zojila passes in Kargil War & still returned healthy. Might be he lost a head on way back from kashmir that he didn't knew what he was doing by riding a bullock cart in public view & claiming to be on Supersonic jet. Still I would share his pain & appreciate his velour & passion. 

Still his email rides were enjoyable till he questioned my drivers license. Challenging my Surname wasn't an offense as both surnames are equally dear to me , Abusing my daughter & family wasn't an offense as my mom would have called it tardiness detection but what caused an offence when that bullock driver challenged my driving capability & questioned my driving Integrity in public.  

I would have given it a go & ignored it but that would have set a wrong benchmark. So his license to drive was cancelled by RTO & for negligence driving , he was booked by DCP Delhi & Faridabad Cyber Cell.  

He complained of exploitation & being victimized by his fellow KPs but that wasn't the case as he under influence of liquor will use public bus to maul & attack me every night.He wont spare even the old and needy. So I had no option but to let cyber cell work on him. On the final day when they were all out to impound him & I was about to give final go ahead.  I didnt let them do it. 

It wasn't my magnanimity but self pity that he was part of the same community & same man whose children & family would suffer because of his notorious acts.  Between my bruised self respect & his future was a decision in front of ACP that would determine the course of events in next few months.  I chose to step down in interest of community & this decision could have two sense 

1. It could have set a trend for future wherein our community members would end up fighting in courts.
2. Give a signal to future generations that expressions & impressions of ideas dont need to be extreme in nature but at the same time someone like me can chase it to the end.
3. But as it would have it , other party might claim it as bravado due to their narrow minded attitude but fact remains that Honking wasnt stopped by driver but we declared his Honking as erratic Music in our expression of Forgiveness & his impression of Foolishness.

It wasnt worth to reply to question of ACP when he asked & I quote "Isnt he a KP ? "

Once again  DNA of Kashir "BATIL" prevails over the Honking "UnBatil" !


Regards ,

Veer Ji Wangoo

Working from Rishikesh
( 23.03 ~ 01.04 ) 2013 AD