The Prince of Shahabad

On July 21^st a young lad of 5 years named Prince fell into a 53 foot deep and 1.5 ft wide shaft dug for a submersible well. The rescue effort was clumsy if I must say which resulted in the ordeal of this young kid to stretch to a painful 48 hours. Hats off to Prince however who put up a brave front and survived the two nights and two days alone in the horrific pit.

Now lets take a look at the other jokers in the deck that cashed in at the expense of Prince. All the TV news channels had some interesting stuff to broadcast and most of them had live feeds at the final stage of the rescue effort. People no doubt came whole heartedly to help out the boy. The army was called in and they did their bit to rescue the kid. Once he got out, the goodies started flowing in from all sides. The local Sub Inspector was awarded Rs 20,000/-, the Army was awarded 51,000/- . Its good that everyone helped. But wasn’t it while on their line of duty that the Army rescued this boy? Its not that they rescued him in 2 or 3 hours. Had they delayed for some more time perhaps the rainy season would have started and they could have thrown in a life jacket for the kid to float up.

Unfortunately not much importance was given on what other rescue attempts were made that failed?

The Ministers are all out still awarding the people involved in the rescue. No one has time to analyze the following… Why was the Fire Department not able to undertake the rescue? In what respects were they ill equipped and have they taken any measures to deal with such situations in the future?

Another week passes by and the euphoria continues. The chief minister has announced a grant of 20 lakh rupees to develop this village. In addition to Prince’s getting Rs 2 Lakh the Govt has announced that they will sponsor his education. Now aren’t we getting a bit carried away by all this? I have nothing against Prince but then why all the fuss for a kid who fell into a well? We have hundreds of other street kids whom no one bothers to help.

With the development in the village after Prince’s fall the contractor who was responsible for leaving the well open is now in great demand. He has got tenders to dig other wells in neighboring villages. His only grouse is how come he was not given any award. if this guy had not dug the hole Prince would not have fallen and the village would still be underdeveloped. Doesn’t he deserve some recognition?

The TV channels all praised the efforts of the people who were involved in the rescue but no one bothered to look into who was responsible for leaving this well open or how to prevent such tragedies. Above all, the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism Award should go to the Moronic reporter at popular new channel. His statement when the boy was being rescued was ‘Can someone find out what religion does Prince belong to?‘ That’s the most absurd thing anyone could say in such a situation.

All the kids now have a different prospective about falling into a well. Its only a matter of time before another budding Prince lands himself into a similar situation. Of course falling in a well will no longer bring in as much publicity to the kid and the Village. Perhaps climbing a 53 feet tree this time and getting stuck might just do the trick. I hope the army does not consider constructing a building parallel to the tree and rescuing the kid.