A Street Quarrel

It is said that man is a cultured animal. But when there is a fight the wild animal in him gets the better of the cultured animal. The root cause of most of the quarrels in the world is impatience and lack of sympathy and forbearance.

Last Sunday, I went out of my house to fetch some eatables from the market. There is a vacant plot a few yards away from my house. The plot is very much situated between two built-up residential houses. In that plot, particularly on Sundays and holidays, children play games of all kinds. Hardly had I reached that plot when I heard a loud yell from the house on one side of the plot. Then I found a little boy running fast towards a house a few yards away from the plot.

Soon, several ladies of the street came out of their houses. There were also many children in this imbroglio. Mainly there were two ladies who rushed at each other as if to strangulate each other. Other ladies tried to catch hold of them but made occasional loud confusing noises. A pandemonium prevailed there. Nothing could be properly heard or understood.

At last, I gathered, picking from here and there that the little boy who had run away from the scene, had while playing thrown his ball in the house adjoining the vacant plot. The ball had hit the lady of the house on the head. It was she who had given out the shriek, he had rushed out to the mother of the boy and that was how the quarrel started.

Besides the ladies, a number of men gathered there to pacify the quarreling ladies, but in vain. The quarrel took an ugly turn when the son of the lady who had been hit with the ball came and gave a sound thrashing to the boy who had thrown the ball. He beat him black and blue. The little boy became unconscious and had to be hospitalized. Thank God, his life was saved with timely medical aid. The lady whose boy had beaten the little boy begged the pardon of the little boy's mother. It was decided by the people that a park, some distance away, should be thrown open to the children where they could play.