Diary of Highway Monk-1

Ramesh Kumar

"Road accidents are actually a disease," blurted out Hella India Managing Director Ramashankar Pandey during the recent core group meeting at his Gurgaon corporate headquarters.

Road Safety and Ram are synonyms. This Madhubani-born die hard safety warrior has been moving earth and moon to sensitize the 1.3 billion populace in his own way for more than a decade.

Drive Smart Drive Safe (D2S), a  non profit, is the baby borne out of this desire. The name says it all. D2S is supported by SIAM, CII, FICCI and several NGOs focused on road safety. Ram himself is chairing the FICCI Road Safety Committee.

His "disease" comment made me sit up. Why?

A few weeks ago, I had bought a book Highway No. 24: The Road Of Death by Anindta - of course, non-fiction - and wrote a short review of the book for  DRIVERS DUNIYA, an English quarterly magazine published & edited by me.

Incidentally, the title for this piece was... Yes, you've guessed it correctly: Accidents, A Disease!

What did I write?

Eight months after this book (Highway No.24 by Anindita J) arrived via Amazon, I flipped through the pages. Definitely, an interesting non-fiction work by someone with a legal acumen. The author's father was the judge who pronounced capital punishment to one Aman Agarwal, a physician-turned-serial killer of truck drivers (45 at the last count!), to avenge the death of his spouse and little daughter in a road accident. 

Strangely, the judge prods his daughter to get the doctor awaiting the noose to appeal against his judgment! His rationale is that Agarwal is not repentant for the dastardly crime he has committed. Anindita, finally, gets the jailed doctor awaiting the noose to permit her fight his case and she succeeds in getting a stay till fresh evidence on how crucial facts were seldom examined and presented before the judge. In the course of collating such vital evidence, she is convinced that accidents are a disease, not an aberration. 


However, Agarwal died before the resumption of the case. All said and done, an unputdownable book, though not a well edited book. Several drifting portions could have easily halved the book from its present size. A must read for road safety warriors.