Coming back from a school meeting in Meerut my driver pointed out that we were driving past the Mango Market. I asked him to stop so I could buy a few. There were so many different types and I didn’t know which ones were the best. (side note: Mangoes are India’s national fruit). Luckily my driver RK was there to help. He picked out four ripe ones planning on giving at least one to RK to take home to his family. We get back in the car and he looks back to reverse and in his broken English started saying, “Man Dead.”
Man dead, what I thought?
“Man dead, big accident, man dead.”
I looked back and there was a bus parked in the middle of the road with a motorbike crashed into the back of it. The driver was hanging limp body off the bike backwards as people ran over to him to help escort him away from the site of the crash.
“Man dead, man dead.” RK kept saying…
“Okay, I get it!”
Part of me started feeling really guilty. Was it my presence directly across the street with my blond hair and bright yellow shirt that caused him, like so many others to stare and take his eyes off the road? Am I at fault of am I just being hedonistic? I contemplated this as I tried to shrink away from the self-blame and stop the man dead chanting.
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