Meaningless Responsibility

18 Aug 2010: Yesterday’s incident in Noida, where a three-year-old fell of a moving school van without the driver or the accompanying maid coming to know about it, reminds me of the time when my daughter was starting her school. For the first two years in Nursery and KG her school did not provide any transport facility and refused to take responsibility for the private vans operating from its front yard. I argued with Rakhi, my wife, who was very worried, that “taking responsibility” does not mean anything. “What can the school authorities do if their own driver hurts or kidnaps the child?” I calmed her with an assertion that I can do a better job than the school in verifying the driver’s credentials. We identified one soft spoken gentleman who was ferrying the little ones in his van for many years. He was also quite open to undergo any verification and shared his residential address and family details. Next day I went to his house, knocked at his neighbours’ doors and asked all the pertinent questions to which I got very satisfactory answers. I also called upon few parents who had used his services in the past. As the final act to complete the process, on the first day of the school, Rakhi and I followed the van from a distance to check if he was not a reckless driver and strictly abided by traffic rules. The school would never have taken so much pain and today more than seven years later we still use his services while ignoring the cheaper facility of a school bus.