AS A GOOD SAMARITAN

                     Raikia's transition from a non-descript small village of the 1970s to a small bustling  town by the turn of the century is really significant. The sparsely populated village has now become a commercial hub of Kandhamal district of Odisha with a sizeable population. Raikia is well-known for its weekly market  on Monday or haat as people call it, which dates back to the  British Raj.  Farmers, small businessmen and vegetable growers of the locality converge at the weekly market to sell or buy and to transact their business. One incident in my life on a weekly market day in the first week of April in 1980  has been imprinted on my mind.

                    My friend David and I were returning  from an NGO Office near the Baptist Church walking slowly when we suddenly heard a big commotion and  witnessed a chaotic scene in front of the Kondh Hill Press. We tried to know about the matter from the people running helter-skelter.  But we could not get any clue. On going near we saw a middle-aged man stuck to an electric pole near the butcher's shop. He was holding  the Guy Grip wire/cable with his right hand  that supported the main pole and was violently shaking as that wire had been charged with flowing current.  At first we did not know what to do at that moment. Anyway, I suddenly snatched an umbrella from an  elderly person and tugged at the hand of the victim using the handle as a hook. Meanwhile, David picked up a dry brick and hit the man's hand  from the other side with a violent force. And thank God, our effort yielded success. We set the man free in time otherwise he would have been electrocuted that day. We carried him to the verandah of a shop  and laid him down. Some people began to fan him. The man recovered fully after an hour. I was happy that God used me as a Samaritan that day.

( Writer - Dr. Pradeep Kumar Nayak )