‘Nobody said a word as we sped away down Ring Road.’-Amitav Ghosh
These lines from Amitav Ghosh’s The Ghost Of Mrs Gandhi, the man who witnessed a random crowd come together to save one turbaned man. He crouched under the seats as goons stopped the bus the author was on. A whole crowd of strangers, including the driver, came together to deny the presence of a Sardar in the bus. Nobody said otherwise as the mob waved sticks and knives outside and the bus made through with the man alive.
With the country in unrest and Muslims being killed as pointlessly but over other pointless reasons, Facebook user Sam Ish’s Facebook post brings to mind a country whose core, once, could not be divided by communalism. People came to save fellow people. Mobs did kill many no doubt, but many were saved because neighbours and sometimes absolute strangers came forward to help. That’s the India of 1984.
And it’s an India we all need to read about. This is her post:
Here is the original Facebook post:
This is the India we were proud of.
