Tragedies waiting to happen

As a country, we have a perfected a template for shocking mishaps and preventable accidents which take an obscene toll of people’s lives, but fails to shake our collective indifference, and our disdain for process, safety and betterment. We would be guilty of quickly resorting to our ultimate set of reflex reaction — denial, forget, and after a while, repeat. So be it with the humanly preventable boat mishap on river Godavari in Andhra Pradesh, that has so far claimed 13 lives, including a baby, and over 35 missing.

The real tragedy is us, Indians; and our pathetic indifference to safety, of our own, and the lives of our loved ones. We don’t think twice getting into a cramped elevator into a building without a fire exit without a backup rescue. Our travel and tourism infrastructure, our adventure sports, our roads and daily traffic, our offices and homes, our hotels and malls — nothing is safer than an inch away from an accident. A human carnage is always waiting to happen. And our tragedy is we still don’t care.

No politician will lose a post because people died. No bureaucrat will be suspended. No junior official will lose a job over it. And we, the people, won’t lose our sleep over it, either.

There will now be an inquiry. A tame report. No action. Nothing will change. We will revert to the inertness that will prepare us for the next accident. The boat was an accident; we are the tragedy.