
Everyday is a new story, every morning a fresh beginning. But how new and different can it be?
Today was supposed to be the evaluation of our O.S. assignment. But since we did not receive any mail regarding the time and venue, so we, me and abhishek, left for mehdipatnam at 2:00 P.M. for buying shoes, guitar strings etc.
Though after a long wait we finally got into the desired bus, I was feeling uncomfortable inside. There was hardly any space to stand. Abhishek was also standing squeezed between some people and I could barely see the upper half of his face and his pair of spectacles.
Suddenly the bus slowed down and started moving very slowly, as if there was traffic jam or some road block ahead. After five minutes of slow motion, bus suddenly came to a halt. We had no idea what was happening. Nor were we standing beside each other.
Someone shouted, “Bomb Bomb!!” and what followed was chaos and confusion. People got down from the bus in desparation and fear, and ran as fast as they could, young and old alike, women carrying babies, and small kids holding their parent’s hand.
I was not convinced that there was a bomb. So we waited for a couple of minutes. Then we went back and sat in the bus. I was laughing at the way people were running here and there, but my laugh was silenced by Abhishek when he told me that his had lost a note of Rs.1000/- in the chaos and confusion.
“Seriously”, I asked.
“Yes”, was all he could say before someone else shouted again, “Bomb Bomb”.
This time when we again got down to see what was actually happening, I saw smoke rising from some place at a distance and many buses, autos and trucks in front of the bus we had boarded. But then I saw some people throwing stones at buses, trucks, autos and so we ran, me and Abhishek. What I could see all around me was people running away from the mob and what I could hear was Abhishek shouting at me, “Don’t stop, just run. Let’s get out of here as quickly as we can”. We decided to run into one of the lanes forking from the main street, and expected to find some peace and rest for sometime. But even there we found people running here and there, I could not understand from what. They just ran because other people ran and large no. of people ran.
As if things had to get worse, I lost my sandles(i mean one of my sandles got torn while running).
And so I was running on the streets barefeet, carrying my torn sandles in my hand! And Abhishek never allowed me to stop until we got a 7 seater public transport vehicle (something like an autorickshaw).

We saw trucks and buses with broken glasses moving beside us, while we seated ourselves in the 7-seater. I was cursing Abhishek, for making me run, as now my feet were burning with pain, since I had to run a mile without sandles!
“I believe there was an accident, a lorry killed ten people and then some people burned the lorry and are now throwing stones on other buses and trucks and autos”, the driver of the 7 seater told us. And the co-driver was telling this story in more detail to people on the way or the passengers, who were sitting with us. “We did not suffer any harm!”, he said in an excited tone.
…..
This was a different experience for us. We were remotely a part of something we saw in news, read in newspapers and heard a lot about but never saw it in real life. And it was not all pleasant.
In my excitement I told everyone I met on my way from college gate to hostel, my first hand experience and yes, they heard it well and reacted the way it was expected.
I don’t understand why people resort to violence every now and then. Though the action(the riot) was not meant to harm anyone, but violence is violence …….