Does their hurt have more Pawar than ours?

Around 3:45pm on Thursday, as I stood opposite The Hub mall, Goregaon East, for a BEST bus to work I noticed more than the usual activity on the other side. Thanks to the coming civic elections, authorities have been forced to remember there used to be a road here dug up in March 2009 and forgotten till now.

But that wasn’t what caught my eye. A random group of around 30 to 35 youngsters waving NCP flags, some in a van and the others motorcycle-borne. Though I am not in TV journalism any more, curiosity got the better of me and I crossed over to the other side. By the time I did so, young party workers perhaps realised that apart from bewildered stares their sloganeering was not exactly creating waves.

I couldn’t notice where the cue came from, but they picked up stones and began pelting them at cars on the service road between the mall and the highway. I ducked for cover behind a road roller and watched the ever-thinning line between politics and hooliganism blur. As people ran helter-skelter for cover, the men and women at a small chai tapris seemed to be at a loss. They couldn’t run leaving their stuff behind and staying back meant risking injury.

A braveheart mother, Sudha Bhoite made a run for it with her daughter Rani (I learnt their name later) in her hand when she tripped and fell. Though the mother wasn’t hurt, seeing the scratch on her daughter’s elbow she broke down, fearing the worst.

Though the Vanrai police station is across the street, by the time the cops arrived, all this had transpired. The NCP workers waved flags, postured some more and more than willingly got into the waiting police van.

The hawkers gathered around and promised to take Bhoite and the eight-year-old Rani back home to their chawl inside Aarey Colony and soon everything went back to how it was — the traffic trying to manouevre through the rutty road, crowds trying to run through, the dust, the chaos and the road repair work.

My eyes were transfixed on the mother-daughter duo, who sat at the roadside on the footpath. A badly shaken Bhoite was cleaning the dust off her daughter’s frock even as her daughter kept caressing her face.

Back in office, an hour later, I watched tickers on television news flash how Pawar’s daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Supriya Sule rushed to check on her father when she heard of the attack on him. I have a daughter at home and can empathise with the concern both the NCP chief and his daughter feel for each other.

I only wonder whether any one of Pawar’s misguided party workers who ran amok in parts of the state realise that Rani and her mother may have the same feelings.