Missed Assignments...

I was at the (golf) driving range late today evening trying to brush up on my drive and iron shots on the first day of the year. However, a very unfortunate incident took place at the driving range that disturbed all of us who were practicing at the driving range.
A golf ball hit some worker who was working more than 200 meters away from the hitting area. The golf ball hit the worker in the eye and the poor guy might end up losing his left eye. Each of us were hitting our shots, and we don’t know whose shot hit the poor fellow. I hope to god he doesn’t lose his eye, and we are hoping he will be fine.

The driving range is covered by a netting on all sides upto a height of about 30 meters. The length of the ground is around 200 meters and the width would be around 50-70 meters. So you can hit straight upto 200 meters and the ball would still remain within the ground. The worker was working at the furthest left corner beyond the nets (that is a good 200+ meters away).

While everyone felt sorry for the kid, there was a much deeper thought that ran through my mind which I still couldn’t get out of my head and so I am writing to share it with you. Please help me make sense out of this.

We were told that there must have been a gap left in the joints of the netting through which the ball precisely sneaked out of the netting and hit the worker straight on. You can call it a freakish incident. Something that is possible only in the rarest or rare cases. But the fact is, it did happen.

Whose mistake was it that the worker might lose his eyes?

Do you blame the worker for not being careful?

Do you blame the player whose ball hit the worker?

Why would you blame the worker or the player? Those two were doing what they were supposed to be doing presuming that others had done their job properly.
Both the player and the worker presumed that the people who had tightened the nettings and put it up had done their job the way they were supposed to set it up, so both the players and workers went about doing what they were supposed to be doing.

It was the people who put the netting up and who are supposed to check on the fitting who didn’t do their job and a poor young guy might lose his eye. Not directly related to the events of today evening, those fitting guys + inspection persons lack of commitment to their job is what has led to someone fighting for their vision. Some guy’s laziness and laid back “Chalta hai” attitude in doing his job will cause a young guy to lose vision for no fault of his.

What was the workers fault?
Life isn’t freaking fair. This guy is sitting in a hospital wondering what he did to deserve this, while the guys who put up the netting have no freaking idea what their chalta hai attitude has done to this fellow. Just because some fellow must have got tired or wanted to leave early he must have let a seam open in the netting and taken off. He never considered the implications. He missed his assignment.

We all need to come to the realization that our actions or lack of actions have implications that go beyond financial gains or losses. We in India, have very little value of life or human beings and so we are never too serious about safety issues. We allow school rickshaws to be filled with 8-10 kids when they can take only 4-5. We allow our trucks and trailors to be overloaded because we want to save money on transportation cost. But we don’t consider what if that same trailor overturns or rams into a vehicle killing human beings.

Till our country starts taking human life seriously, such incidents and a lot worse will keep happening because we are selfishly and financially driven.

I can list a lot of incidents where the selfishness or financial considerations of individuals have cost many a lives, but this blog isn’t about listing such events, its about missed assignments.

Lets not miss our assignments. We need to concentrate on the things that we do each day. We all have a lot of people’s responsibility on each of our shoulders, how can we let them down.