Right in the Night??

It was a cold December night in Bangalore. Though the residential Koramangala was already sound asleep, lights still lingered on at Nagu (Translation:Smile - The name of our house)... As usual the five doods (Actually it is dudes, which has got worn out over time and excessive usage) were chatting at the centre stage of Nagu.... The idiot box was still on with volume trimmed down as the sixth dood was asleep. A one and a half hour of WWE had just completed and the doods were getting ready to do some serious study.....

11.30 PM
DHADDAAAAARRRRRRRRRR...... Looked like there was a big crash somewhere in the nearby surroundings... Initial thoughts were that the Electric transformer next to Nagu had exploded... But the lights in the house were still on.... So it couldn't be the transformer.... Everybody from the chatting session sprang to their feet and hit the road.... Everything seemed Normal... No sign of any explosion or anything. Attention got diverted to the adjoining Main road. People were running with their night dresses on. Something had happened .... The doods followed... Nagu was left ajar...

11.35 PM
There was already a big jantha (Translation: Gathering) as soon as the doods came to the main road. There was a toppled luggage rickshaw (The tri-wheeler with the luggage trolley at the back), with people atop trying to pull out somebody/something. After some serious digging in, three well built men pulled out a guy in his mid twenties weighing quite heavy. From no where people started screaming “Neeru … Neeru” (Translation: Water). Me and another dood went back to Nagu picked up a bottle of water and came back…..

11.45 PM
We returned to the main road with 2 L bottle of water. The crowd had grown. The rickshaw was back on its wheels upright with its side panels dangling on either side. The hefty guy who was pulled out was sitting on the foot path surrounded by people. He was waning in pain….. Looked like he was holding on to something in his left hand. Then we realized that it was his broken right hand. It was broken right at the middle of the fore arm. He was under such extreme pain that he didn’t drink the water. People around him called an auto–rickshaw. Accompanied that guy with two other people and sent him to the nearest hospital.
All this while the number of onlookers picked up and the situation was heading for a traffic jam.
Then one guy who was limping got into the now upright rickshaw and started it. To every one’s surprise it roared to life. He drove it off the main road and parked it on the side road. He was accompanied by two of his other friends who were bruised on their limbs.

12.00 Midnight
We the doods were watching all this and still trying to assess how the accident could have occurred. The police Bolero came along. A traffic inspector I think got out. A senior person in the crowd was explaining the situation. Looked like a case of drunken driving … The people in that vehicle did not seem to be in their senses. Then as one of the injured explained…. There was a new stone divider which was put on the main road very recently. There were no indicators/markers depicting the divider. So this rickshaw in the dark drove over the divider and lost balance and toppled. The driver (the hefty guy) was stuck beneath the auto and was injured.

12.10 AM
The police by then had started clearing off the people. We came back to Nagu… exchanged our views about it for some time and hit the bed.

So that leaves us with the question that has been in my mind since two days? So how safe do we in India drive during the night? What are the traffic rules that we fail to follow just because its night and there are no cops to catch us? Then the big question Why do people after so many incidents still drink and drive at the cost of their and co-passenger’s lives?

So as proud owners of our vehicles are we being RIGHT, IN THE NIGHT???