E-Paper
A hero?s farewell
There is a paper-thin line that separates heroism from cowardice, or for that matter, indifference. Salam Javed was caught in the Meerut fair fire with five of his friends, but they all managed to escape.
There is a paper-thin line that separates heroism from cowardice, or for that matter, indifference. Salam Javed, an 18-year-old from Delhi, was caught in the Meerut fair fire with five of his friends, but they all managed to get out safely. He could have walked away from there, thanking his stars for escaping certain death. But he did not, because on hearing some children crying for help, he went back into the inferno, fighting the flames to rescue over ten children. Javed may have acted against the instinct of self-preservation, but he was impelled by that transcendent human emotion that is so difficult to define that it is sometimes, somewhat simplistically, described as ‘heroism’.
What went through his mind as he plunged back into the inferno to help fellow humans in distress we will never know, but as a result he sustained excessive burns and was found unconscious by his friends. He was first treated at a Meerut hospital then moved to Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital where he died. Charges that his death was caused by negligence may have been made in the heat of the moment, but if they are true, it is a matter of utter shame.
This is because in Meerut’s sordid story, caused by careless organisers and handled by callous officials, Javed’s actions are an act of redemption that tell us that man’s basic instincts towards his fellow man remain noble, even if it takes a traumatic event like a fire to bring them out.
