I went to Karumandurai yesterday to shop, and it was abuzz with a story that seemed to have no redeeming features at all.

There had been an accident at Pirivu road: A biker had been crushed under the 4.25 Ramani coming from Salem. The consensus seemed to be that the biker was drunk and had jumped off his bike on finding himself on the wrong side of the road, with Ramani approaching.The bike itself escaped unscathed in the accident.

The driver (a local lad, from Kallupatti) and the conductor left the bus where it was and walked to the police station to report the accident. Then a mob from Kovilkaadu (the dead man’s village) gathered and set fire to the bus. Some policemen who had arrived on the scene tried to pacify them but the mob pushed them out of the way. The fire engine did arrive, but too late to be of much use.

Everyone and his brother in Karumandurai seemed to be watching YouTube videos of the bus-burning. 15 minutes of fame!

The private bus owners had decided not to run buses to Karumandurai, the government buses had followed suit, and Karumandurai itself wore a deserted look: No employees in the bank, except Gangamma who sweeps the place. No post bag from Salem…

The trouble is that a certain normalisation of violence has taken place. It has become completely acceptable to respond violently, immediately. As witness the politicians’ statements on Pulwama (“ Two of theirs for every one of ours”: Ridiculous). There is no possibility of a nuanced response; it will probably end up in sedition charges. All of us have become inured to reading news which should actually be churning our stomachs without actually registering the emotional truth of the matter.

Until something happens close to home.

I have taken that Ramani so many times, but I wonder what I would have been doing had I been on it day before yesterday. I suppose nothing. The mob would have ensured that everyone who was not with them was against them.

The Hindu article (which has a lot of geography wrong) says that a case will be registered against the bus burners, if the owner of the bus prefers charges. And that has happened. This should be taken to its logical conclusion, and the arsonists should be brought to book.

The general attitude is that had it not been for the bus burning, the family of the dead man would have got some compensation, no matter the rights and wrongs of the case. Govindraj, our milkman, said, “At least if they had just broken the windows and not burnt the bus,…”

Which just goes to show how much violence has been normalised.

(Title credits: Ray Bradbury. That story is tangentially relevant to this one. Rather than search YouTube for the Karumandurai bus burning, you would do well to watch Ray Bradbury :-)