May 11, 2005

Metro on my mind

Six items in the "Metro Digest" column in the Times of India (May 11). With the details summarized, here they are:
  • Motor-bike rider killed. [Daniel Pinto, 18, bus ran into him on his bike.]

  • Housewife attacked. [Palmin Gazdar, 42, attacked in her flat by two armed men, "her screams scared the attackers who fled soon."]

  • Senior citizen killed. [Subadhrabai Gade, age mentioned as both 28 and 67, hit by an autorickshaw, died a day later.]

  • Woman set ablaze. [Sangeeta Shingane, 22, doused with kerosene and set ablaze by her sister-in-law, Yeshoda Vihare. No mention of whether Sangeeta survived.]

  • Doctor booked for rape. [Ramesh Vani, 34, took a 21-year-old girl to a flat he had bought in Dahisar and raped her.]

  • Newborn found dead. [Baby girl abandoned in Kurla, found dead by police.]

What's all this, was May 10 a particularly violent day in Bombay?

I don't know, but on the same page, there is a news item titled "Domestic dispute costs 90-year-old's life." When Khatunbi Lal Sheikh got into a quarrel with their neighbours three days ago, they began throwing bricks. One hit her and she later died.

Also on the same page is news of Rohan Pai, a 25-year-old airline executive who got caught in the door of a lift and died. In a box with this report is a "Disaster Diary 2004": four lift disasters from last year, including three in the first ten days of May, including one on May 10 (Puja Gupta, 9, crushed to death between a lift door and a wall).

And elsewhere on the city pages: "Five of family killed in mishap"; "Constable accused in date rape"; "Cops at Marine Drive chowky accused of abusing woman"; "Woman gangraped in Thane."

Ah, what a start to the day, reading all this. Invigorating beyond belief.

Besides, there's this sentence from that item about the baby found dead in Kurla: "The head of this newborn girl was in a flattened state."

6 comments:

Anurag said...

That's why I prefer The Onion (http://www.onion.com) to The Times of I.

Anonymous said...

oh yes, I know just what you mean... I winced so hard when I read about the lift death that my husband asked me what was wrong.... the same way, this sunday TOI was a rape special issue - news gets newsier and newsier at TOI!

Annie Zaidi said...

and on some such days, I begin to wish I was illiterate... and that Govinda was still making movies... and that there was at least one newspaper that would consist entirely of comic strips. I'd subscribe

Anonymous said...

Awwww c'mon! Deal with reality people... daya, seriously.

wise donkey said...

to think of life coming to ends like these and tryin to think what could be the worst among these.
so tough to read it, cant imagine what it would be like to live in it.
feel i am typin a cliche when i say just so sad and tragic.

Sunil said...

I sometimes want to stop reading all news, too much of misery. But then something else in the TOI online cracks me up, and the absurdity of it all makes me come right back to the website! Life......