SUSHANT'S ROADSIDE SHOP

Like many others , Sushant too has opted for a modest temporary shop on the public land, close to a busy road of our locality. The shop being too close to the road, its raised door marginally protrudes over the road and if there are a few customers, some of them would unavoidably be standing on the road and their Bikes would occupy a good 10 % of the road-width, parked in different angles. 

Sushant is enterprising; his zeal to face rising price is great; he looks humble but is highly ambitious. His tiny shop is a veritable Department Store. You name an item and he holds it before you -- be it a small Chinese lock for your about to be airborne suitcase or a tube of paste to relieve your nagging toothache. He has built into the cabin a cellar and even a loft. How he gets into them would baffle even a gifted gymnast. He is about thirty three and is a father of a cute child whose first birthday he had celebrated with great abandon in the neighbourhood Temple complex where the high and mighty and the humble joined to bless his child. 

He has been a responsible son, looks after his parents, living in their village, with great devotion. He is a reliable guide to his younger brother and a doting young sister. About two months ago, the sister visited Sushant and she and Sushant's wife decided to visit Sushant in his shop. Both of them were about to return home while a speeding Bike hit the sister who fell on the road with bleeding injury on head and a broken leg. She was rushed to the hospital where she responded to treatment and left the hospital only the other day, well after two months. Sushant spent most of his time in the hospital. The person who had caused the tragedy agreed to bear the entire cost of treatment. I am not sure if he paid for Sushant's loss of business due to his absence from the shop. This arrangement was amicably worked out and Sushant agreed not to take legal action.

I am not sure if such incidents are always resolved that way, amicably. I suspect it cannot be that way. The weak victim is never so lucky. He suffers the injury, pays for hospitalisation and the aggressor, sometimes, runs away without leaving a clue.

 
Ours is a world where the regulatory and enforcement arrangements continue to be weak and whimsical. People have therefore taken recourse to improvisation. Such an arrangement has protected the more resourceful but has left the weak unprotected.

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