Courageous acts

Four daring and courageous acts have got etched in my memory:

The first one happened more than thirty years ago, and I had read about it in a newspaper. The incident took place on a Mumbai Suburban Railway platform. A Gujarati group of persons were immersed in conversation among themselves and were totally oblivious to the surroundings. A child belonging to one of them was playing and while it was at play, it was moving backwards and suddenly it fell on the railway track. There was a hue and cry all around, and everybody was awe struck and did not know what to do. And the train was entering into the platform and was coming fast

A college girl suddenly jumped into the track lifted the child and with the child on hand she instantly climbed over the platform at the opposite side, and moved to safety! And within seconds the train had entered that spot.

When asked later by the journalists how she managed to carry out the act, she shrugged her shoulder and answered, “just like that!”.

The second one happened about five or six years ago. This was narrated to me by one of my friends, who had read it in a newspaper that day.

A Russian Security man was holding a baby in his arm and was standing in a balcony of a fourth floor apartment. The baby suddenly jumped out of his hands and was falling! Without even thinking for a moment, the Security man jumped out of the balcony. He was the first one to race to the ground, and as he fell he turned upwards, and throwing his arms upwards, he caught hold of the falling baby in his arms!! The baby was unhurt, and the man had a back bone fracture!

The third one happened about a year or so back! There were floods in a part of Rajastan. Many people were stranded in a village, and the water level was rising menacingly. A bank Officer belonging to that village and working nearby, rushed to the rescue of the village people in his jeep, and moved the people to safety, batch by batch. After completing the task, he was retuning back, when the water had raised neck deep already. Knowing that there is no hope for his survival, he rang up his brother, a high ranking police officer in Tamilnadu, and informed him of his plight, and soon he got immersed in water. His brother’s efforts to save him by contacting the officials in Rajastan were not successful. This I had read in a Tamil magazine.

The Fourth one took place recently, about one month back. A school van taking the children back home capsized into a tank. A teacher of the school named Sugandhi who was in her twenties, was also travelling along with the children in that van. She could retrieve herself from
capsized van and reach the bank safely, but, when she looked back at the van, she saw the young ones struggling to come out. Unable to bear it, she went into the water again, once, twice and thrice to help the children to get out of the van and reach to safety, but, in her fourth attempt, she was not successful . She succumbed to the water. When the firemen retrieved the bodies, she was seen holding the hands of three children in her attempt to save these ones also.
Salutes to these people!!