Consistent at negligence, that’s us-Bangaloreans!

It’s happened again. In fact, it was waiting to happen. This time, it claimed the life of 25-year-old Karthik Yadav from Purulia, West Bengal. He came to Bangalore to make a living so that his family could live a little more comfortably than it was.

Instead, he lost his life at the construction site of the underpass at Hennur Circle when mud caved in on him. He and other co-workers were digging out mud to help a JCB excavate mud for construction of a concrete retaining wall on Friday.

That life has no value for us is staring us in the face, and we are doing nothing about it. Incident after tragic incident has occurred in Bangalore. And we have lost count of how many times construction workers, pedestrians, children and the elderly have died.

But not once have we learned anything from these incidents, only allowing — actually allowing — more to follow and join the majority that rests in peace.

A thought comes to mind, making me wonder about the inequality in applying standard safety procedures for whatever we do in different categories of functions. Why is it that so much care is given to the safety of astronauts’ lives before they lift off for a mission in space? And, of course, during the mission, and even when they splash down?

Then why not the same care be given to little things that we do in life, about which death is the least expected outcome?

Pilots go through thorough training schedules before they earn their commercial flying licence. I repeat: Earn!

But take a look at people who get driving licences in Bangalore. There are sparse regulatory steps to check whether every person who drives or rides a vehicle is licensed to do so. Not just that, also whether they are indeed safe while motoring around on the roads even after getting their licences.

Why is there no intense training given to prospective motorists? And to think of it, there are more people who die on our roads than people who lose lives due to pilot error.

And still, we carry on with it, getting used to that one dreaded word, which no longer sounds dreaded — accidents.

Why, for that matter, are construction workers not given fool-proof training while at work? Don’t the authorities — in this case, Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) officials — use some common sense while applying their techniques (whatever they may be) by ordering workers to work with heavy machinery or concrete walls that may seem likely to collapse on them?

That brings me to think that life in our domain has no value and we seem to like it that way. “Let them die!”

When the loss of even one life should make us sit up and do something about not allowing it to happen again, we let it happen again and again and again.

What follows immediately is an apology of an action against the negligent or the violators… and then everything is forgotten until the tragedy repeats somewhere else to swallow another life.
At least at that we can boast of consistency!