Friday, November 17, 2006

Filthy Rich

The media’s side of the story: A bunch of teenagers partied into the night and were driving home drunk when the guy at the wheel lost control of his car and rammed into the footpath killing 7 construction workers from Andhra Pradesh taking a nap.



The other side of the media story: A bunch of teenagers partied well into the night, they didn’t have time for a drink, so they drove home while drinking, the guy at the wheel lost control of the car and it rammed into the footpath leaving 5 injured, 7 killed and 3 critically wounded.




The driver’s side of the story: A bunch of his friends partied into the night, were drinking on the way home, the axel broke and the car smashed into the sidewalk, killing 7 people. Some of his friends ran away home before the police caught them. Many people drink and drive, and he was unlucky enough to be caught, which happened only because of the car malfunctioning.




A friend’s side of the story: These kids are really rich and have been partying hard for a long time, one of the guys had got a stripper home for his sixteenth birthday.




A journalist’s side of the story (not shown up in the newspapers): The driver’s father walks into the station, half drunk, I ask him for his comments, and he says he has none and “I am fed up.”




Funnily enough, the people in the car have Orkut Profiles, which allows one to come across things like:




You have a debt to repay to society... a nice lesson imo as far as responsibility goes for somenoe who it appears from the papers is spoilt and had too much money and not enough sense to know what to do with it.




And




when you read this i hope you are ashamed.. and i hope that you regret what you've done.. cos nobody is oing to forgive.. your frends might tell you.. to chill and relax.. but i hope they read the bigger picture and they see the kind of magnitude at which the damage has been caused..
im soo angry.. i wish i could meet this ass.. i hateto take his name .. the fucker who was driving the car.. he should not live.. and i hope .. being the rich snob that he s.. that when he gets bail and he's out and you talk on the phone.. do let him know what i wrote to you.. and that how people are angry and ashamed and furious at the irresponsible behaviour of the 6 of you..
murderers!




Sentiments probably echoed everywhere… there is a lot to be ashamed of here, for the entire society. While pretty unpardonable, the carter road area is utterly devoid of speed breakers, and I have also speeded around in there, it is pretty dangerous with or without alcohol. These six rich young people involved in such an incident is compared, even by the media to the similar Salman Khan incident some time ago, and has more or less the same newsworthiness, and this is exactly what we need to be ashamed of.




The whole story is about the people in the car, not those who are dead. Some insensitive people claim that it was illegal for those people to be sleeping there in the first place, and so its no body’s fault that they ended up dead. That’s like the railway worker who was not compensated when he died by falling off a train he should not have been traveling in because he should have been working. Another bunch of people rally around the dead claiming the sever damage these people do to the society… that is also bollocks because… well, no body wants to know about the dead. There is some sadistic pleasure in seeing the rich bastards in some kind of trouble they cannot escape from. The whole thing has to do more with the richness of the kids and their lifestyle than the actual tragedy that happened.




This makes me think that many of us are socialists at heart, at least the majority of the middle class…. Or only the rich are capitalists. If this is true, then it is even more shameful that the rich are actually ruling the world through supposedly equalizing ideologies.




About the incident itself, I know this man, who got hit by a maruti and he fainted. He regained consciousness in the police station where there was a report of his drunken driving in front of him. He had never touched a bottle of alcohol in his life. Not saying those guys were not drunk, but the police and the media is both fucked up, AND a friend has a shirt that says “The first to vomit, drives” .




Cheers




Various Contradictory press reports for your consideration:




"The driver and two other occupants of the car appeared drunk. We are carrying out their medical tests,"




Police arrested all the six persons in the car, including Aliston Pareira (21) who allegedly was in the driver's seat.




The angel of death visited the shanties on Carter Road on Saturday. And it came in the form of a drunk Alistair Perreira (20), at the wheel of a black Toyota Corolla.




The Navy Blue Corolla, mowed down 7 construction workers sleeping on the footpath at Carter Road.




By the time he brought the car to a screeching halt amid shanties reduced to rubble, six people had died and nine were critically injured.




Three alcohol bottles were found inside the car.







A bottle of whiskey was also recovered from the car

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