Hmmm..So what started as a call for Bharat Bandh actually went on to cripple the entire country for 12 hours...Throughout the day, news trickled in about sporadic violence, traffic snarls, train delays and flight cancellations...so what was the intent of the bandh? Well, dont go by the above mentioned news makers, the real intent was Price rise...
Now, to put matters in perspective, I - like my fellow millions of brethren - have been pinched by the rising prices. The other day, we ordered food from a local restaurant..I had a menu card that was dated 2 years back...and all my brilliant extrapolations on the expected increase went for a toss..When I ended up paying the home delivery guy, I shelled out exactly double the amount compared to the one 2 years back..Has my salary increased that fold? The answer, unfortunately, is a NO. Come to think of it, if middle class people like me are feeling so much pinch, then surely the poor have been hit real hard by this price rise. So, in a way, to express my solidarity with the Bandh call, I also did not venture out of my home - and definitely it was not influenced by fear of violence. I, as a dutiful citizen of this country, want to see the inflation going down..this price rise is killing everyone..gas is dearer, petrol is costlier, kerosene is higher than ever before...the three pillars on which India's working class is surviving have become a bit more out of reach thanks to the price rise....Wish there was a genie to cure this malaise...
But, here is another side of the bandh...of course seen on my television screen..
I saw trains being stopped. Surely there would be people in those trains for whom reaching a certain place was a matter of life and death...
I saw ambulances caught up in traffic...I cannot imagine myself in such a situation gasping for every breath, hoping to reach hospital to fight another day just to see my last rays dwindle out as I am stuck in the middle of nowhere..
I saw a rickshaw driver watching helplessly as his windscreen was being smashed...
All these made me to rethink on the rights and wrongs of a bandh...but as I have come to know, there is nothing right or wrong in this world..everything is relative..it is the perspective which makes it right or wrong..
All I hope is for the prices to call a Bandh and not increase anymore...
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