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| Daredevilry and acrobatic skills-desired qualifications for the job of an electrician in India |
My hands are trembling as I write this. Everything I tried in order to push the thought of it out of my head has failed me. I simply need to vent. I do not know how many people witnessed the gruesome accident that happened to an electrician in Vilupuram,TN during the first week of July, 2012. About 2-3 news channels telecast a brief account of it with a video which totally unnerved me: still ringing in my ears are the brain-numbing screams of the crowd that had formed around the poor man. There he was, atop an electric pole-teetering over the ubiquitous tangle of wires, his torso on fire. He was so benumbed by the electricity that he couldn't even cry out in pain. In a bid to untangle himself from the gruesome mess, he struggled helplessly to rip his body off from the deadly wires. But wherever he tried to get a hold, there was current passing; pulling him and gluing his limbs to the wires, worsening his condition by the second.
It is a terrible,
gut-wrenching feeling to watch a person in such excruciating struggle-pain and torture increasing boundlessly until he finally gives up.
Several minutes had passed before someone finally turned off the power and he was lifted from the trap and rushed to the hospital. However the news was not aired for more than half a day and info about his present condition is nowhere to be found (I tried all leading Indian newspaper websites and numerous Tamil news channels so far).
Where did things go wrong? The newsreader said that when the man was trying to set a connection right, someone had unknowingly turned on the power lines. It breaks my heart to think about his plight. All he tried to do was set right a glitch-just his highly risky routine job for which he was most certainly underpaid and he has been terminally injured, thanks to few other 'glitches' that I feel we must pause and think about.
First, what happened to protective, insulated clothing/uniform for the electrician? They have been given gloves but will they be adequate protection? Besides employees are not cautious enough, perhaps due to lack of proper safety training.
Second, why didn't the man who mounted the pole have personal control through a device/remote-controlling equipment to operate the current flow? How can electricians be forced to rely on a colleague to take care of something as dangerous as this? Why should electricians be made to put their life at stake just to ensure uninterrupted power supply for us?
And most importantly, why are electric poles and lines in the city and suburbs so chaotically arranged, disorderly and haywire? How many more lives are they going to claim?
Just by constructing a neat set-up of electricity carriers and monitoring the lines, thus eliminating or at least reducing tangles and congestion, half the problem could be solved.
The disheveled tangles rightly reflect the very nature of our utterly disorganized government and its institutions. Here, I'm not taking any sides or political stature because I'm pretty convinced that this condition has been prevailing since electricity was made available here. When such is the case, who is to be blamed?
Well, one thing is perfectly clear-our policy makers must get their list of priorities right. An electrician's job may be listed as a 'petty' or a 'menial' task but does that give them the right to consider his life that way too?
Have you noticed how basic survival issues and safety amendments seem to take a backseat and call for prolonged efforts and protests to garner the attention of the government while the same leaders are always prompt to announce the obviously apathetic New Year, Christmas and Diwali wishes?
If political leaders can take time off to hoist flags and visit other counties to develop friendships while they could just do it over video conferences, It is only fair that they give life-threatening issues like these some time and wake up to proactive decision making.
