It was just the day after the auspicious Sankranti. About 17 women — a few young and the rest of them middle-aged — set out even before dawn broke on January 15 at around 3.30 am, in a small bus from their homes in Davanagere (a town located right at the centre of Karnataka). They were headed for a vacation to the golden shores of Goa. Somewhere close to Dharwad where they were to stop for breakfast at 6.30 am at another friend’s place, death had laid a trap on the highway. Their vehicle rammed into an oncoming heavy tipper on a very narrow road. Many of them died of the impact.
Just about five of them survived the accident. Most families lost the backbone of their being. Mothers who held familial ties together, professionals, wonderful human beings; and above all, women who came together at any given occasion to claim their time as friends, died a sudden death. In that, two young girls with yet-to-be-realised dreams, travelling with their mothers to spend some ‘girls time’ were crushed to death.
Small cities have a very special way of fastening bonds between people who are contemporaries or stand a few years apart from each other. So many happy and sad memories are intertwined. As people grow and get into different phases of life, time travels together. It feels like you can stretch your hand and reach out to a friend to start a conversation from where you left last time. But in reality, we all know it’s not that easy. If only the tipper had arrived at a different time or the driver had been alert to make adequate judgement.
Just as the dead bodies lie strewn on the road, the ‘breaking news’ media started sending out sensationalising content about their death complete with pictures. Technology has amplified tragedy, made it all accessible to stalk the dead and ensure the whole world watches the spectacle too. Privacy and respect be damned. What’s more, even grief isn’t grief unless you have expressed it on social media. Silence is too confusing for us mere mortals. Our hopes lie with those who had survived. All those mothers who had etched their own identity in that small town had been assertive enough to desire, plan and go on a holiday as a group of women. They had indeed charted a path of their own. Don’t get me wrong. Solo travels are usually reserved for young men and women (though rarely, but we could always grow from there). Trips abroad for women with families are some package deals (with family). During such times, women do the same tasks on autopilot as they do at home, at a different location. It may not seem like a revolution enough when women decide to chuck it, take off by themselves but then IT TRULY IS. Let’s acknowledge every woman who decides to go by HER terms. Especially those women living in semi-urban areas where the economy is booming, but mindsets of elders are stuck in a time warp.
A tragedy involving women erupts a barbed fence all around them. Like the administration in MP wants to track women going out after evening hours ‘for their own safety’ whereas tracking perpetrators would have been appropriate. But then hey, men ARE human you see!
(The author is a journalist deeply seeped into the theatre of (&) politics.)