Just Another Victim

He was lying there on the hard tar road. The hot sun dazed his blurred vision. He couldn't feel his legs, he thought. People were running past, but no one stopped to help him. He could figure out that the dark viscous fluid on his forehead was blood. His thoughts numbed as he tried to lift himself. He succeeded in dragging himself to the edge of the road. As he collapsed, along the footpath beneath the shade of a tree, he realised his senses slowly blacking out.

What is past is prologue !

He left his home on the outskirts of Warangal at the age of 17 to get a degree in Engineering. He had done well academically throughout his life and could speak decent English despite being educated in a Telugu medium school. His parents dreamt that he would one day be the pride of the family and his brother often teased that all the village ammailu would queue up to marry him.

He was ragged. He was befriended. He was an excellent batsman. He helped out his friends in those last ditch efforts to save the backlogs from accumulating. He discovered new things in the big city, but was never overwhelmed by them.

He fell in love. She was his classmate. It wasn't the kind of romance from the Telugu films he often told her. They wanted it to last.

It had been almost three years after leaving Warangal, he now felt at home in the single room that he shared with 2 others at Tarnaka. It was an exciting day. He was going to meet her parents. It was just the way he wanted to this to go forward. He adored her and she adored him back. He knew the urban parents would probably be easier to face than his parents back home.

His friends warned him of the dangers of going out that afternoon. He smiled and trotted off with a spring in his step. He realised that all was not normal & that maybe his friends were right. But life had to go on, he avoided the rioting crowds and walked towards the bus stop. Anxiously he hopped on a bus that was headed towards the station, because the bus to Begumpet was taking too long to come.

He hastily typed an sms on the Nokia that he had bought with the money from the paper presentation he had won, when *crash*. The glass of the window next to him splintered. The stone from the miscreants struck him on the head with a force that knocked him off his seat. An elderly gentleman behind him, held his hand and guided him off the bus which emptied in seconds. The old man was beaten, he felt helpless as he was pushed aside. He felt weak and dizzy. A White Sedan was speedily trying to escape the scene. It struck him as he wandered into its path. He remembered the feeling of being thrown many feet into the air. And then there was blackness.

The movement had knowingly or unknowingly taken another life.