Speakout#25 - The presence of mind in a taxi ride

I usually think more than twice when sharing a news that can pass worry unless it would only help if I shared the news. I came to know about an incident that happened to one of the students in the University I study a day before.

A girl from Delhi arrived to Bangalore and booked a cab ride to go home around 7 p.m. For those who haven't traveled the airport road, there is a huge stretch of road once you enter the outskirts of the city and enter the highway while passing between small areas or fields by the side.

The cab made a stop in between where there were no people around and the girl had noticed that a gang of bikers had been around the cab for a while. The driver said the car had broke down somehow and exited the vehicle to check it and the bikers stopped and offered to help.

The girl felt something off and exited the vehicle immediately taking a note of the vehicles number around and crossed to the other side of the road while phoning her friend. The friend told her not to worry and sit in the car and talk to him through the ride. The girl called her father following that call. The driver asked the girl to stay back but she ignored him. The girl explained the situation and her father (an influential man) told her to take note of everything and sit back in the car with the call on.

In the same time, the father called up the police commissioner at Delhi and got through the nearest patrol unit near the girl in Bangalore. The girl waited for a while on the road and the patrol unit reached. The bikers had slowly left by then. The driver said the vehicle was ready. The patrol unit told her to leave in the same vehicle and that the unit would follow her without the driver's knowledge.

The girl listened and got back to the vehicle and the girl was dropped back home safe. It was around 11:45 p.m. by then. The girl had noticed at times in the ride that the driver would fiddle with his phone quite alot.

After reaching home, the girl got a call from the police after a while. News came that the driver was a serial rapist and the bikers were a gang from a trafficking racket. The driver was working along with them. The police had captured them and gave them a good time treating them well. The girl's presence of mind and luckily, some influence got her back home at the late hours.

Apparently, the bikers work in a formation driving around the car keeping a distance watching for other cars and all they need is a passage of 30-45 seconds in a highway where nobody stops if they see some vehicles with people outside parked to the side. The bikers can inform the driver to stop via call/SMS. Information such as what roads to avoid or take, whether the coast is clear or not to execute an operation etc.

The company providing the cab services cannot be put at fault completely here since the  background check in Bengaluru would not help with a person who has buried a criminal history somewhere in Chennai or Mumbai in a country where crores of people live and more than ten thousands share the same name.

What we would like to tell you further is that we keep mindful of how we are when we are in places where we are not with our company of people. I know what I'm sharing is extremely troubling and I might getting a couple of messages or comments questioning me further. But most of the times, we are only responsible for our safety.

One would blame the cab service company now. I would say no, we cannot point our fingers just towards them. I could say Bengaluru is at fault and never safe then. Then one would point their finger at me and tell me, all the cities and towns alike are so. The truth is danger can be lurking anywhere. This is just one of different incidents shared.

These inhuman beings are not scared of anything as we, as a society, have given them the advantage of keeping quiet when violated. Almost more than 90% of the cases violating the dignity of women are never reported because these scums film the incident and keep it as leverage intimidating families further with mental torture.

When you travel alone and hire a ride, make it a point to inform someone who can reach you about the cab details preferably in front of the driver. Try travelling with company and avoid late hours, especially while traveling long distances.

There is no point harvesting paranoia here. All I'm saying is that take consideration when your friends and family tell you to take care and not to travel alone a lot next time.

And yes, please share it with everyone you know. I'm thankful that the news was shared. Be mindful.

SpeakOut#24 - Needs and desires.

What I am about to tell is quite simple. Yet in the simplicity of things, we may just read through and smile and forget it; thinking that we have kept it safe on the shelves in our mind to use it when it comes handy. However, such simple things are always lost.

We have needs. Needs of different kinds. We prioritise our needs based on the way we lead our life.

And I am no one to tell you how to lead your life. You decide it for yourself.

All I ask is that you do not harm anyone else in the course of trying to fulfill your own individual desire/need. 

Because we can dive into the murkiest depths at times when we only pay heed to a desire. And desires rise the most when we are not in our senses.
At times, that is all we desire... to weaken our senses. To cause harm to oneself is wrong too, might I add?

I speak from experience.

This is nothing new. Yeah, you knew it. How about acting upon it?

Speakout#23 - The evening sunlight that spread across our faces - Experiences from Kolar, Karnataka

I am pursuing my Masters in Social Work at Christ University, Bengaluru now.

It has been 9 months since I wrote the last time here. I did feel like sharing in between but I would not have a beacon to keep me writing for long enough. Right now, however, I have a soothing music jam session being played by a few friends and their music team from University where I stay . A couple of melodious voices with the violin and the tabla adding the ingredients. They sing "Dheere Chalna..."

Last month, some of my classmates and I were staying at a village called Yeldur in Kolar, Karnataka. We had to do our fieldwork as part of our course curriculum. We worked with the Kolar Project of the University's NGO that takes care of around 18 villages in the region. We would work in the project office in the day with reports and move out into the village and meet the villagers to observe, interact and take part in their activities. Several of these villages would be atleast 5km+ far from our project office and there have been times we have had to cross more than 30km one way to reach some villages.

Yeldur and the places around have a dry land vegetation with a lot of green agriculture that man has introduced there. You can find either acres of flat barren land or land with some cultivation going on. In between you can find curves and the land around giving you a desert feel with the land around looking like a lake or huge water body that dried up once upon a time. You can find plenty of tamarind trees there but that is a natural though. You can also see a lot of the ragi yield everywhere on the road being grounded or blowing into your face while travelling. The mornings begin cold with the fog and mist that passes slowly until the sun breaks through after which it is only the sun striking down on you with a cool breeze. Bike riders would like the kind of travel experience the place would offer.

Certain things which make an impression in my heart, I love to share these things exactly like how I saw it to a very few people I feel I need to share with. I'm taking a part of my conversation with such a person because I felt recently that maybe this experience could inspire more to explore the world around them.

"The ride to the village in the evening was amazing. The sunset had begun by the time we left the agency and it was shining on our faces by our side constantly while I rode to the village. The reddish golden light filled everywhere and broke the trees, the plants and tall grass in the fields from our right crossing us and falling to the fields to our left. Again the rays felt warm while the air was getting cool in time. It was just spectacular since I was listening to songs from CokeStudio in the background so I felt like being in a traveller movie. It pretty much felt like my display pic in WhatsApp now. I would keep riding calm at a decent pace watching the nature move while I kept moving to my destination. From good roads to broken roads. A horizontal flight of pigeons from left to right from a bit above while an autorickshaw sped across towards my direction. We met a crossroad and got to the next road and there were school children walking home. There were these three children from the lot walking home who were toppling on each other while walking trying to bug each other being their naughty selves. Also I noticed these birds of prey (Idk whether it is a falcon or eagle or a kite) that seemed to be gliding around all chill similar to my bike ride but then take a sudden drop and split to different sides when they spotted something. 
The ride back to the agency was more beautiful. All the roads back in darkness but the star lit sky made it hard for me to look at the road and ride. I've never seen so many stars altogether. There were bright ones and then bit bright ones and fading ones and then stars like shades. How can they come in shades? I had never seen these many stars from Kerala even. I would keep calling Shashank (my friend) who sat behind by my hand and point to the sky quietly while I rode and he would shout all the possible words of exclamation in his vocabulary covering for me too. Hehe.

All the while, while I rode to the village and got back to the agency I had in mind that you had to see this. Maybe because of how we like to observe things.

Around 40 students are staying over at the agency here. They've a soft skills training program at our campus in the morning and they will leave in the first bus from here. The agency will wake up in 15 mins now to get ready. The first bus is at 0430.

We had to give an orientation session to the youth about soft skills after we got back from our villages around 8 p.m. After the session, while all of us guys looked back at the sky we realised we might be looking at constellations and Shashank got this app to spot the stars and we found out that we were looking at Orion and some other names. Hehe.

It is still beautiful to watch now. I'm stargazing as I write. I woke up from sleep  somehow seeing your reply and remembered I had not written to you as I had planned and wondered how I fell asleep. So I set out and started writing it all down. It is such a chilly night. The half moon and the stars shine so clearly that I feel I could climb up the agency building and jump and catch the moon and fall down lol

We have a much cozy place to sleep tonight. We were moved from the garage next to the agency office to the upper room within the agency office. This agency building is another thing that is interesting to me. At times I feel like I'm in a villian's lair cum office that was made from a previous small sized factory building. 

The upper room is smaller so it is easier for heat from our bodies to accumulate and make us feel warm. Yet I woke up from the cold and I'm outside where it is much colder. I'm so awake now hahaha I feel like something that was put to frost in the freezer. I'm going in now before the youth guys wake up and get shocked seeing me outside. They'll have to take bath in this cold. I shudder at the thought of it.

I'll be sleeping well now that I've written all this down. Idk if it would make sense though since I wrote alot to process in such small space or if I missed anything that I had thought to write.

Hope you read this in a good time or it makes you feel good if the time isn't so.

Guess you would be sleeping now and then waking up to the Azaan there! God is Great! :)

Haha the cold has blocked many noses here. I'm hearing snores in unison and in parts. Such harmony! "