It’s alarming how little attention we give to the safety measures in life. And I am not talking about the government or others in responsible positions, though they are included as well. I mean each one of us. We know things happen, we read about them daily, yet we have this strange and unreasonable faith that nothing of the kind will happen to us.

On our way to the hospital one day, we saw a truck ahead of us that was tightly packed with concrete bricks. It was easily slipping in and out of traffic. My first thought was, what if the driver hit the brakes suddenly or something happened to dislocate the bricks, they would fly off the truck and crash on to the rest of us right behind it. When I made this statement, my husband said, “No, nothing of that kind will happen. There is no danger.”

I said, How do we know? We believe the bricks must be carefully packed, and nothing will throw them off the truck. And that the driver will be careful. I knew I sounded paranoid, and it was no doubt from reading the newspaper too much.

The discussion did not go any further till we reached the hospital where I happened to pick up the day’s newspaper. In page 2 there was a news of a building collapse, and the sub heading: “Builders ignored safety regulations…” which led to the collapse. Everyone involved must have assumed that others will take care of it so that no accident will happen. Yet it did happen.

When we eat shawarma from hotels we really don’t expect to die within a few hours, do we? Nor do we expect to land up in hospital with severe poisoning after a chicken biriyani. Yet these things happen, and we continue to eat those. We easily use products beyond expiry date saying “Oh, it’s fine… just a day or two won’t do any harm.” Not to mention the compromises we (are forced to) make on matters of hygiene.

We see school bus drivers overspeeding on the roads and the best we could do is place our hand on our hearts and say, “God, please keep those children and others on the road safe.” We read of train and bus accidents, yet we continue to travel hoping that someone will be more careful this time.

We believe someone else will be careful so that the rest of us are safe. And yet so many accidents happen because of neglect and carelessness. Because no one gives a damn about what happens to others. We leave so much to Faith.