Life is full of ironies. Ironies are all the more painful when they play with human life. All it could take for a precious life to end, is an accident – a cruel, brutal accident which can bring a bubbling, charming, young life to an abrupt halt. While one can sympathise with bereaved families, perhaps it is only the parents and the near and dear ones of young accident victims, who actually experience what it means to lose one’s loved ones, all of a sudden.

This para from a report of 2003 could very well have been written for todays news report in the TOI that has cruelly snatched the life of 71 year young Kalyani Biswas around the periphery of Ulsoor Lake, Bangalore.

The tragedy here was that the tractor that hit her was actually taking a Ganesha idol for immersion. Can anything be more ironical, more cruel than this?

The facts also show that the driver was drunk at the time of the accident. At the most, he will be arrested and put behind bars. Till, that is, somebody can bail him out. A free man, thereafter.

This is, thus, the larger tragedy that plagues our state and our nation. Lack of accountability. People walk away free from their crimes. Eye-witnesses turn hostile. Courts delay. Lawyers, well, they are a breed apart. The system lends itself to manipulation in ways that that Machiavelli would blush.

It would be interesting to know just what percentage of ‘hit & run’ offenders are actually serving prison sentences and on a subjective note, feel guilty for their offence.

I wish changes were coming about that would ensure that the suffering families could get their greivances addressed and the guilty punished.

Punishment which includes a driving licence being revoked for life, the guilty being put behind bars for 15 years, a hit & run offence being treated as ‘non-bailable’, the state also being punished by having to pay compensation to the victims family as ‘x’ percentage of his ’employment’ value till retirement or after etc etc.

Unless these kind of harsh deterrents are made and enforced for all types of heinous crimes that ail our society, all words of solace and sympathy to the victim’s family is but a mockery.

Its better to hang one’s head in shame!