Dozens of incidents of drowning and one-wheeling resulted in numerous fatalities on Eid day across the country. The incidents speaks to the cavalier attitude of excitable revelers to basic safety guidelines. Picnics along unsecured river banks, canals and lakes ended tragically for 28 families, whose youngsters lost their lives swimming at Taunsa barrage, Head Sidhnai and Bin Qasim Karachi. One family lost four brothers to river waters swelled by rains and fed by floods.
Alongside these tragic incidents, in urban centres, the roads presented a familiar display of foolish bravado, which has not only become an integral feature of Eid, but also of other holidays such as 14 August. Bikers risk their own lives, as well as those of others threatened by unsafe driving practices; motor vehicle drivers are not far behind.
With the lack of entertainment opportunities, the younger lot create their own, unfortunately in the most dangerous of ways. Their behaviour also attracts censure from more sedate circles, who expect to step out of their homes and not be harassed by “yobs”, one-wheeling down the roads or hanging out the window frame of their cars, with one foot on the steering wheel and one on the accelerator.
Such youthful exhuberance often means that they are themselves the first casualties, with one bump on an uneven road enough to throw them off balance. This Eid, predictably, many of them ended up in hospitals.
There is much to reflect on when observing this emerging culture. With a generation being bred with no consciousness of being legally accountable for their actions, or of endangering society collectively with risky individul behaviour, there is an urgent need for mentoring within the family unit. Such suicidal behaviour must be discouraged by gentle persuasion, rather than by censure and denying the younger lot their need to let off steam.
If we can learn to demonstrate joy without ostentation or boastful behaviour, we individually and society as a whole will benefit from it.