Three days a week, I reluctantly lift my butt off to go for music classes. It doesn’t matter that I like attending the classes. It still doesn’t make it easy to change into some respectable clothes, brush my hair and exchange the comfy slippers for sneakers.

(picture courtesy – http://www.clipartkid.com)

On this very ordinary Tuesday evening, I yet again primped myself up and walked to the metro station. As per usual I got off at the metro, exited and boarded a shared auto, not before buying a lousy packet of salted peanuts.

I kept popping the nuts one by one into my mouth as the auto kept grumbling through the crowded roads.

(For those who are thinking why I am punishing them with the dull details , I assure you, it’s a buildup to the intriguing part.)

As I kept munching on, the auto passed by a group of men actively whispering and staring at something on the ground. A few were yelling around and arranging for help. Suffering from the same disease of the typical Indian pedestrian curiosity, I strained my neck to see what the big commotion was about. There I saw a man, lying on his stomach, with a massive puddle of blood around his head.

I kept staring with wide eyes and mouth. After a few seconds when I sensed my co-passengers equally shocked and disturbed, I cursed under my breath and went back to chomping on the nuts in my hand. In the same breath, my mind wandered off to what I had learnt in the previous class and that I should take out the money from my purse for the auto ride. A short prayer for the unfortunate man and his family was the last thought I spared for the incident.

Of course I wondered if I should help out the good Samaritans in that crowd but I let it go. Maybe in part because of the mess I would be dragged into once the police arrive at the scene, but that is a story for another day. It was clear I couldn’t have been of any additional help other than joining the rude spectators. And as much as it is a shame, the Indian laws don’t really encourage anyone to help out the victims of an accident.

But this is not the point of why I shared this story with you. What affected me the most about the incident was how strange my reaction was to the whole scene. I would have thought that I should have had this profound, life altering affect on myself. At the very least, I expected myself to go completely numb and slack jawed with my brain completely void of any though other than the man and the unfortunate accident he had been through.

To see myself gawking one moment and popping nuts into my mouth in the next was certainly a prime piece of dark humour.

Have you ever read Joan Cornella’s comics? I swear I’m not digressing from the topic. Look at this comic strip for example.

It’s not hilarious in the conventional sense. It’s disgusting, discomforting and bewildering. And we just don’t understand why we still find it funny.

It’s the same feeling I am left with. Am I sadist for finding my reaction absurd and comical? Am I a terrible person for not giving more gravitas to the incident? I don’t believe so. Our ordinary reality is very different from movies. Life isn’t just a linear series of events. Our brain continuously flits from one thought to another. It doesn’t mean that each of the feelings or thoughts isn’t genuine. Maybe one of them hold higher priority and affects us more. But even the others have sincere influence on us.

What happened that day wouldn’t remain as a common place life moment. With time it might take up a larger than life size, adding on more embellishments. Maybe when I tell the story to people in the future, it would prompt graver and more somber reactions that I couldn’t give at the instant. I’ll probably forget any other thing I was thinking about and it would all precipitate into a solitary event, just like in the movies.