Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Street Experiences (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/)

-   -   Fight club (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/81402-fight-club-2.html)

@Pramod - IMO, Swami's words are inclined more towards truth & are simply what we see & hear everyday news. To name you few countries that have far lesser issues compared to India - Singapore, Newzeland, Luxembourg. They may not be the size of India, but they're far better. Atleast the quality of life for a tax paying common man is better.

I can understand your patriotism & approach of positive thinking on India, but there is nothing incorrect in Swami's words. Most importantly, most of the posts or experiences shared from our own community people have witnessed atleast one such incidents & I'm sure there will be more.

Point - Its high time to control such things, if not, things are going to be totally out of control & this country will no longer remain a safe place to live for a common man.

aargee my post is not entirly based on romantism and patriotism. I dont know who told you the singapore is one of the safest places on earth, Read this Crime in Singapore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, crime rate in Newzeeland :Emigrate New Zealand Crime :: Immigrate New Zealand :: New Zealand Immigration

See where india stands

List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Population Rate

List of countries by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of english speaking(little educated) people of the world

List of countries by English-speaking population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


With this kind of % uneducated people in india who will have to do anything to fend themselves, with 20% of the population haveing no home or a small makeshift homes i wonder how the crime rate is still low.

My dad always says the world is balanced with both good and bad people if the balance is lost there will be chaos.

I feel its a lot safer for a lone tourist(read male) to venture arround in india without being mugged than in any other country.


PS: lets not go OT, the point is how to deal with such a situation

Pramod

Pramod.
I agree with Goswami and aargee here. We are not talking of crime rate. We are talking of mob mentality.
Crime exists in all nations. But I've not seen people getting down to fisticuffs on a road over a small dent here or a small scratch here in any of the foreign country I've visited/ lived in. No one resorts to fleecing activity as well.
While in US, on a trip to everglades, my friend hit a parked truck while trying to park. No one gathered around him, screamed, beat him up etc. They called the cops, it was dealt in court and insurance took care of things.
So let's not deviate in to things about tourists getting mugged / other crime rates etc. This is purely about mob mentality of jobless drunkards who manhandle a driver and take law in to their own hands.

Very unfortunate Parag. Which area of Pune did this happen in ?

Crime in Pune is really going out of control. Even in decent localities elderly women are having their throats slashed in broad daylight.

All this is because folks have absolutely no fear of legal retribution.

Thank you all for your concerns. Based on the responses and when I re-read the write-up, I felt I sounded like I was beaten to death. The situation was bad, the fight was nasty but fortunately I came out alright, without much physical or psychological damage. My apologies if I sounded too wounded. :)

But the most frustrating part is the helplessness. The outcome of these situations is our helplessness due to which we tend to and need to shy away from these incidences.

I do believe in Karma and they will hopefully learn the lesson in some or other way. But it seems, it was my bad karma in the past that I had to face the situation this time :)

That's a good one. I guess, things happened so quickly that I didn't get a moment to think more rationally. Next time (hope it doesn't come), I'll keep more cool or bring my hysterical side out.

No, it wasn't.


Agree with MX here. Having spent 5+ year in US, I relocated to India last year by choice. People gathering to watch road incidents was a rare sight there, in fact, honking was like a crime. But at the same time, decency of people behavior not being the only reason to curse the whole country, one can not stop comparing better living standards (or conditions) to poor. My friends (in US), after hearing the incident asked me - why did I ever come back? They are bit frightened to come back hearing these sort of incidences, reading crime stories in news papers, political scenario etc.
To me atleast, it wasn't a question of being frightened of staying in India. Afterall, I am a citizen by birth!

Anyways, the question still remains open - can't we do anything to change our mob mentality? Is shying away the only viable solution?

Help the helplessness!

First of all, i want to say that i am as disgusted to read your experience, as you must've been to go through it. it just goes to show the lack of law and order in this country.
Although, reading through your story, the key factor to observe here is that besides these people being goondas, they were drunk., which attributes the most towards this behavior.

I think this has more to do with people being drunk and resorting to violence, and less to do with the concept of mob mentality in India. heres something to read on those lines - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...166554882.html

where there's drunk people (especially gathered as a mob), there are fights. and this happens everywhere. not just in India. i have witnessed this numerous times in other countries as well.for eg: if you're walking down on George street/Oxford street late at night (in Sydney), you pass a whole lot of pubs, and a whole lot of drunkards walking out from pubs, some of them have only one thing on their minds - violence. Similarly in London, Ive seen it happen at numerous occasions and areas, Richmond and Hammersmith for eg.

I do strongly believe that one must be physically prepared to defend themselves, if the situation asks for it. like in your case, judging by your story, i am convinced that you did attempt to get away and make peace several times and not just once, but these scumbags were simply looking for a fight, which in their heightened state of intoxication is their idea of "fun" or "timepass" or even "work", and you happened to be in their way at the wrong time. Learning self defense can really help in this situations. if not self defense or karate, learning techniques to escape from these situations also helps a great deal. sometimes, trouble is simply unavoidable.

i can understand how you must feel, but the more you think about it now, the more it will bother you, so try and move on.

Even my point is on how to deal with Anti socials(mob is different and not present in the case). I have nothing against any one but yes the way things are delt with here (Our country) is different, and the moment some one narrates a sad/scarry story, few of us start bashing our country, system, rich poor divide, curruption and what not. I have just replied to such a post.

If you have an issue in the forign countries your insurance takes care of it, you have an issue here people try to settle it themselves, but thats a different story.

Here the OP had opened a thread where antisocial eliments(read gangs) have attacked him with no provocation, its not the case of any mob viglanty, there is another thread where a guy was praising the mob for beating the living daylights of a guy who did not comply to waht a cop said on a busy intersection.

@ Parag, we all have taken a page out of your experience and all we can say is pray that no one gets into such a situation. Any ways life is tough, next time please let your car insurance take care of these issues rather than you doing it.

Pramod

And he's getting castigated by all the other members who are posting responses there! :thumbs up to t-bhp!

@MX6 - I think TN & KL is better; my car got hit by a college bus in Pondicherry & I made a big fuss on the road & there was about 50-60 public + college students & all the more the college was run by who's who of Pondicherry. I was screaming at the top of my voice on the road, but no one spoke against us & we left Pondi with Rs 3000 for the damages caused.

If you remember the other incident where I hit a boy in teens deliberately when I was young, I was shivering, but things favoured me the other day.

I think it all depends upon how the situation demands & how it is handled. If encountered with angry mob, need to remain calm & if things favour us, we should remain aggressive. But on anycase, calling cops will help & safe guard ourselves.

Strictly my take and no offence meant to anyone else on the forum,
we are havng a very loopsided growth in our society, which I think is a result of the economic liberalisation. The lower middle class is being pushed down and the upper middle class is getting more affluent.
The rich class have no worries, some one else takes care of almost everything. (May not be factual in all cases, but this is the general perception)

The point am trying to make here is that we have so much to defend for car, house, family etc etc and are suceptible to even minor damage caused. Be it a slight indirect remark that a tapori hurls towards the women you are accompanying or a small dent on a car that a drunk makes by smashing a bottle, because he is frustrated. Or the taxi/auto guy who fights with you/demands more fare just because he thinks you can afford it. I mean you are bound to loose your peace if you fight these guys.

The poorer strata of the society have aspirations that are fuelled by media,films and other sources. when those aspirations are not met they tend to get frustrated and resort to violence even at the slightest provocation. Its a mentality that's been ingrained into their beings over a long period of time,

So what happened in Parag's case was typical demonstration of such behaviour, the mob saw a avenue to get even in the way they could at that moment, being in a mob gives a annonymity that such people love.

I am no social activist, but someone like you who has experienced such irrational mob behaviour, My tact is mostly a combination of what has already been suggested. Try not be a hero in such a situation that will only detoriate your position, no point in being rational because such crowd will be working at the behest of few individuals whose rationality will be nill. Just focus on getting away from such a place, in case you are confronted and there is no exit route try to call for help or let the monster in you get loose and get the herd leaders first the others will just dissipate.

Unless there is a correction some where down the line, I prempt that we are only heading towards disaster, we will continue to get even more susceptible as the population ratio gets increasingly skewed with aadition of more people whose aspirations not being met and one's that do not have anything else to loose, they will rise up and only time will tell how all that anger/frustration will manifest.

Do I sound prophetic, well may be but that's from the observations from the the world around me

India.!!!!

Parag, forget it and move on.. In India these things are quite obvious because of the frustrated jobless youngsters who really can't earn money and envy people who do so.

My thought, next time this happens, chase the driver to an isolated place and beat him black and blue. Don't stop at places where you feel others can interfere. Also, keep weapon in your car to defend yourself from these goons. I keep a long Spade.!!!!

Very sad to hear this happened. And HATS OFF to you for staying cool!

I agree that this is a country problem. It may offend patriots, but as long as we keep saying this is better than other countries, our country will remain this way. This kind of thing happens in most places but what matters is how rare is it, and to what extent this is the norm / exception.

Yes, mob mentality exists more in this place. We first need to move away from that. You can see it in micro levels at offices or public places, where an argument is judged based on the number of people supporting each side, rather than the points spoken. Logic is secondary, numbers are everything... and ethics dont even come into the picture.

Sorry but I think the bitter truth is that we are lagging behind in evolution. You can flame me for saying this (with numbers of course!).

A similar thing happened to me. I was riding my bike with two of my friends, we were going very slow so we rode in the left most lane. Suddenly a drunk guy staggered and his shoulder just slightly touched my bike's rear view mirror. He touched it so slightly that the mirror's position didnt even change. This happened just outside the bar.

Within seconds, some 10 to 12 guys had snatched our bike's keys and we were standing there helplessly wondering what to do. The guy was shouting "where is the guy who ran over me!". We were about to get lynched. Luckily, one of my friends actually knew one of the drunkards in the mob! That guy supported us, and persuaded this guy to give us the bike keys and take their argument inside the bar!

:deadhorse

I had a similar tussle with a Mob @ Golibar, Santacruz (W), Mumbai 3-4 days back..

The guys appeared to be in their early 20's and seemed to have a good connection with a local Marathi dominated political party..

I was driving and one of the guys was standing right in the middle of the road talking on the mobile phone hands free.... I was honking n he didn't move.... I took side and moved ahead..... Later on he came from behind and started banging on my windscreen.. I opened my window and asked 'kya hua?' he started telling me 'shaana hai kya, gaadi chala raha hai to kidhar se bhi nikalega kya etc etc'... I told him 'boss u were in the middle of the road and inspite of honking u didn't move... he immediately called his ghaati frnds and there was a group of 5-6 roadside goons in no time....

All this under the nose of a police chowky barely 100m away........ They tried to open the door of my car....but couldn't do so..... They went away after sometime hurling abuses at me.

I feel so helpless not being able to do anything..:Frustrati

I'm planning to lodge a complaint with the police chowky... any suggestions guys ???

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team :
Please take the time to use proper punctuation as per Team-BHP rules. Avoid...typing...like...this. Thanks.

You already gave the answer.

Besides, filing a police complaint basis they hurled abuses and banged on your car window would be a little hard to prove if you think about it logically (at least in my opinion). What if they in turn file a complaint like hit-n-run.

I'd strongly recommend that you take it off your mind and just move on with your regular life. Please read the very first post and think about it again, rather you were lucky I'd say. :)

I'm glad though that it ended only with some abuses and banging on windows, you be thankful too and get those goons out of your mind, they ain't worth the time.

Ignore it buddy; just do a long drive or something that brings happiness & try to forget & get out of the frustration.

Yes, pls proceed with the police case, when you want to lose peace of mind, invite new problems, enjoy troubled life, keep moving between court & police station & all the more - lose money. To them, its part of their life & I don't think you should be wasting your time on it. Just ignore & keep moving Yogesh, its not worth it.