Before I put across my argument about being a hero, let me talk about two incidents in which I was involved.
Incident 1:
It’s a cold 2006 New Year’s Eve, time is 1 AM after partying for a good 4 hours and good amount of alcohol in our system we decide to go home and drink some more.Shanbhag and I decide to get the car from where it is parked, we ask Nivas to keep women company at the club.
Shanbhag and I are now on our way to the car, walking in front of us is a couple and walking behind them is a huge mob (must have been 10 – 12 drunk guys) passing lame comments at the girl. I am sure the boyfriend was really mad at the mob and would have been desperate to save his girl from being humiliated, however he decided not do anything about the comments.
That is when things took a bad turn and one of the members from the mob starts throwing pebbles at the girl. The boyfriend looks back and seems ready to take on the mob, Shanbhag and I might have jumped in to help him. But, the boyfriend maintains his composure and quietly walks till his car and leaves with his grilfriend.
Incident 2:
I am on vacation in Delhi and I am walking with two guy friends and three women friends towards a club around 10 PM. A white car slows down close to us (there must have been a good 4-5 guys in the car) and the driver rolls down his window and passes a comment to the girl walking next to me – ‘humari gaadi main beth jaao madam’ (sit it my car madam).
I was infuriated and wanted to do something about it, but decided to ignore the comment (so did my other guy friends). However, the women friend of mine abuses the driver – ‘nikal yahan se madarch**d’ (get out of here motherfu**er). She then puts her arm on my shoulder and almost sarcastically says – Deepak don’t worry I am here to save you. All I could say (jokingly) was - thanks, I don’t know what I would do without you.
I for one can’t stop wondering what would have happened with the girl if her boyfriend in incident 1 had picked up a fight with the mob, and got overpowered.
What if I had picked up a fight with the guys in that car, I had no clue how many they were in the car and in a place like Delhi wouldn’t be surprised if they were carrying any weapons.
Incidents like the one in Mumbai where a mob of people misbehaved with women on streets of Mumbai on New Years Eve come to your mind.
Some of you may be thinking the guys were cowards and should have put up a fight, but the way I look at it the only thing on the mind of these guys was the safety of their friends.
If I have to let go of my huge male ego and be called a coward, I am ok with that, it’s a really small price to pay for the safety of my friends.
What would you do if you were faced with such a situation….would you be rationale or rather be a hero?
Live today to fight another day!!
This is a story about a survivour of the recent Mumbai terror attacks which touches on the same topic; I would strongly suggest you read it:
https://thelink.thomsonreuters.com/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_219503_886177_0_0_18/HTML_103149_11_17_2008_8_9_42.html
