She was sixteen.
A radham - tall, sacred, massive - collapsed onto an auto.
She was trapped inside.
In those final moments, what did she see?
A crowd.
Running.
Watching.
Frozen.
No one stepped in.
Not one person tried.
And maybe they were afraid.
Maybe they thought it was too late.
Maybe they were waiting for someone else to go first.
But none of that brings her back.
What haunts me isn’t just that she died.
It’s that no one chose her.
Not over their fear.
Not over their own safety.
Not even over their instinct to flee.
And what does that say about us?
We build chariots for Gods, decorate them with Gold, pull them through the streets in loud devotion - but when a girl crushed beneath one, the silence is louder than the chants.
We call it a tragedy.
But maybe it is a mirror.
A moment that reflects the kind of people we’ve become.
How we’ve normalized looking away.
How fear wins over humanity.
How help is something we hope someone else will give.
And the thing is - I wasn’t there when the Radham collapsed on her.
But I keep thinking…. What if I were there?
Would I have run too?
Would I have done anything different?
Or would I have let that moment pass me by - and tried to forget it later?
I don’t know. And that terrifies me.
She did not need a crowd.
She needed one person.
Just one soul brave enough to move towards her.
She did not get it.
And now, even though I never knew her, I carry her.
Not as a stoty.
But as a question that won’t leave me.
P.S. Thanks to ChatGPT
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