Who is responsible?

Technology has shaped the human civilization in a way that it seems an irreversible process now. Many of the technological tools such as mobile phones or televisions have become necessary in modern time and they are no longer construed as luxury and rightly so. Few of us can even ignore hunger for a day, but can’t suppress the urge to check the notifications of various applications of our cell phone(s).

Technology has helped us immensely and made our life much easier than ever before. We can definitely say that our present human civilization has been the most comfortable society in materialistic terms in compare to any of the past societies.  (I am not saying that, at present, we are the happiest of all as comfort and happiness are altogether different phenomena). But at times technology shows its other side, which may not be pleasant at all.

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Few days ago, I had a trip to Bangalore or Bengaluru as now they call it. During my stay, I used its public transport system “the Namma Metro” on quite few occasions. It was overall a good experience except for one instance and that one instance was not inside the metro but at one of its stations. In whichever cosmopolitan city of India you would be in, one aspect will always remain common and that is huge crowd in all the public places. Banglore is also no exception to it and neither was its metro system.

So on that day when I was entering to one its station, like many others, I also preferred to use a “technological tool” called “escalator” or the moving staircase to get down. You would presume that what is special about it, it is so common these days. But I have mentioned it with a reason here. The reason is that it was overcrowded on that place and it deviated from its usual performance. Have you ever thought or experienced what will happen when a moving stair case would abruptly stop? If you never experienced, don’t wish for it. Because, experiencing the Newton’s First Law i.e. “Law of Inertia” on escalator may not be pleasing one for sure.

So on that day, when I was unprepared like others, the escalator suddenly stopped unexpectedly. The experience was just like as someone has applied a power brake in your car on seeing a possibility of collision. But we are generally prepared for the brakes in vehicle but remain casual on escalators and never expect a brake.  Everybody on board became shaky and some even fall over. I was fortunately holding the side railing which prevented me from tumbling. But suddenly someone from back fell over me. When I turned back, it was a young beautiful lady! I saved her from falling on the rugged staircase, I was proud of my achievement.

But, she was embarrassed, ashamed and whispered “I am sorry”. Without thinking too much I said “Thank You!!!”  She became puzzled and retorted “What? What did you say?” Sensing here unease, I quipped “You have made a wrong choice of words, instead of saying sorry, you should say me thanks as it was not your fault and since I have saved your beautiful face from getting defaced, I might be obliged by a Thanks rather than a Sorry”. She smiled. I thought my sense of humor worked and there was an instant reward for it. She asked “What’s your name?” But before I could have answered her there were huge uproar on the ground. Few people were shouting vehemently in a language that I hardly could have understood, but I could sense their anguish. There was a hurdle there and in mid of the hurdle a lady in her mid 30s was crying profusely. Taking the advantage of my height, I tried to peep in the hurdle, but since the language was alien to me,  I couldn’t understood what was going on there. I thought she also might have fallen from the escalator, but there were no visible mark of injury no blood on the floor, no mark of scratches on her face. Then few minute later, someone from the crowd spoke the language which I could have discerned. He said that the lady was pregnant and due to abrupt stoppage of the escalator she fell off from three or four steps atop and now she is agonized about her wellbeing of her impending child. I saw a lot of people were consoling her, but she was incessantly crying. This is probably one pain which half of the population could not have understood.. I realized, only signs of scar are not the sole representation of the pain, some pains are too heavy that scars can’t depict it. Since I had a preoccupied schedule, I had to leave that place. But few question kept hitting me?

Who should be held responsible, if something mishap had happened to the child, who is still not in the world?

1. Government?
2. Metro Authority?
3. Operating Staff?
4. Manufacturer of the Escalator?
5. Technology itself?
6. The lady herself, as she was not holding the side railing as precautionary measure
7. The Karma of the Child, as Sanatan Philosophy says that one’s fate is also decided by its karma in past life.
8. Or, combination of all these factors

I didn’t find the answer of the question, even after pondering it over and again. I reached my accommodation at night after having an eventful day, through the same metro route and via same station where the incident has happened. I was checking the notifications on my phone  and then suddenly remembered something “Someone had asked my name today!!!”

 

Note: Needless to say to my readers that I some time write fiction, inspired by some real events. You are free to Judge which event was real in this story and which one was my fictitious narration.