Perspectives
I was just beginning to take a break from working on a review and resubmit and having a friendly conversation with Dr. Sanja Pattnayak (MBA chairperson and associate professor of Economics) and Dr. Manu Prasad (assistant professor in the OB/HR area), when Dr. Urvashi Rathod (Prof. of MIS, and our colleague and neighbor) briskly walked towards her office with an expressionless face. The lack of a smile on her face meant something was wrong, and all of us knew it. She told us that we have a very big problem and nodded in the direction of her office. Taking the cue, we followed her. Immediately after we entered the office, two young ladies also walked into the office. They were at the verge of crying, and something clearly had gone wrong for them. Worried, I picked up a water bottle and gave it to the girl who appeared more shaken.
After a minute’s pause, the young ladies began to open up. I was able to piece together that the two had met early in the morning that day in one of their homes to prepare for a group presentation that was due later in the day. Upon completing their presentations and rehearsing, they decided to come to campus by an Ola cab. There was bumper to bumper traffic on a service road near our campus when a five-year-old boy came running near the car. The old driver had tried frantically to honk the boy away, and yet, the boy did not move. Understandably, the driver moved very slowly to avoid the boy and go about his business of dropping off his customers. However, at this point in time there was an accident. Albeit at very low speed (I’m guessing at 5-10 kmph given the traffic situation at Nerul at 9 o clock), the boy was hit, and his head lay inches away from the tire of the Ola cab these two ladies were on. The girls were in shock. And requested the driver to stop. However, the driver did not, and moved on as quickly as he could. For the rest of the journey, the two ladies were in horror. They continually requested the driver to stop, but the driver did not pay heed and proceeded to drop them. The ladies watched as the boy got up, and ran away, crying.
At 10, the ladies attended class as usual, completed their presentation successfully, and confided in Dr. Rathod, who then brought them to us after the class ended at 11.30. Over the course of the next 20 minutes, we sat them down and helped them understand various perspectives. Dr. Rathod emphasized to the students, who were now watery eyed, that the best part of the story was that there was no one who was irreparably hurt. The girls then described to us how powerless they felt and how worried they were that they themselves could have been at harm’s way, now that they witnessed this act. They told us that the driver’s eyes were ‘red’ and ‘scary’, and they had never felt so unsafe in their entire lives.
While the others focused on comforting the two, I was very lost in my own thoughts. I was wondering, what else could the driver have done by run? Why was boy there in the first place? Had they stopped and checked on the boy, would they have been safe? Could a mob have hurt the two ladies and the driver? After some time, I did try and tell the duo in my own words to look at the big picture and highlighted how they could think of the actions of each stake holder contingent on the restrictions within which they had to act. I told them that the driver may have also been as shaken but was worried for the safety of his customers. Perhaps the driver was worried that he may have been beaten up by a mob wanting to provide swift justice. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. There were to too many possibilities to count. Whatever those possibilities were, I’m proud of my students. They spoke truth to power. They wanted to do the right thing and surmounted insurmountable odd. What more can teachers ask for?
