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| Charred buses, damaged public property after the protest (who is at the loss??? We are) |
It was
a decade ago, when I was in school. Computers were rare (atleast for the lower
middle class family like mine) unlike the present time when it’s an essential
household item now. My school had a
computer lab and there were 10 computers in that room. The total strength of my
school was more than 2000 students, so most of us hardly got any chance to
operate it. On my way to school, just 50 meters far away from my school gate,
there was a small structure being built, I thought maybe there were building a
public lavatory but wondered why weren't they building it on the main road. One
day, we came to hear about the news which was creating buzz in the whole
school. There was a NGO which was going to install some computers on that
structure which I previously thought as a public toilet. That was it, a small
computer lab with four computers. During the day time the keyboard were kept
outside and the monitor was inside those four small windows. They would shut
the windows after five in the evening and open it at 10 at the morning. There
was no one to keep a watch.
Although, we
heard from many about it being a free service to all but we were still cynical.
Besides that, we were always scared of operating a computer without assistance
as we always heard our computer teacher saying
“If you’ll press the wrong button, it will damage the computer”and the fear of unknown always prevented us from operating in it. I had my previous schooling from a private school and there was computer lab too. I knew to play games, music and typing and because of that I was leading my gang of four on that day. I told them I will show them how to operate a computer and they followed without any resistance.
When we got there,
we were disappointed to see the long lines of students waiting for their
turn. I made my way through the crowd to
see what was going on there. As usual,
the school bully boys had captured all the systems. We didn’t even think of waiting looking at
the lost list of bystanders. I told my
friends that we will come some other day when they all will get bored of
it. Soon the hope turned to despair when
we saw the condition of that public lab. The keyboards were missing most of the
keys. Everyone who got the chance to
work in the systems took out the key with initial letters of their name. Frustrated by this, it was shut permanently
maybe by the same organisation who thought of providing free computers to the
students.
That structure is
still there and wearing out gradually, lies inside piles of rubbles, telling
the story of apathy of citizens and students of this city. This is just one
incident of my life. I have been through many similar incidents which fill me
with disgust.
We always keep complaining about inefficiency of our
government and law and keep criticizing politicians. These incidents really
make me believe that saying;
“We get what we deserve”
Let’s make ourselves deserving first than we will be in a
position to criticize. Let’s take an oath that we won’t destroy any public
property and not even any private property. In protests too we destroy and
damage public property then we wonder where all the public money is
wasted. Why can’t we take care of the
public property like our own? If we change our behaviour and attitude towards
this we will certainly be able to create a better tomorrow.
