The scooty wobbled for a second. The old man riding the scooty looked at me (I am not making this up) and then fell on the road. Drunk Bastard! I stood shocked for a moment and then went to help him out. He was trying to get up and didn't look hurt. So I moved the scooty out of the way. I looked around. There were quite a few people standing there watching this but none of them came forward. As the scooty was cleared off the road, the old man followed. That's when the drama started.
A young man and his friends came over and started talking to the man. Their talk soon turned ugly and before any of his friends could stop him, he had slapped the old man twice. That's when it dawned on me that they could be related. They kept on arguing and watching all this was quite uncomfortable. I was waiting for an auto-rickshaw and there was none in sight. The young man offered to drop the old man home on his bike but the old man refused and insisted he will go home on his scooty only. This family drama made me nervous a great deal and I decided to walk away from all that.
My father's younger sister's husband was a habitual drunkard. I don't remember a single night he was sober when I used to spend my vacations at their place. Late night fights and what not. I was there that night when things turned nasty. He survived that night. Two teenage kids and the kind of hell they went through!. He later died two years ago due to liver failure.
It had been few years to that incident but it all came back and made me sick as I watched these two fight on the road. The old man doesn't realize what his family endures because of him. I hope it isn't too late for him when he does that.
