September 02, 2026

Life Lost For Rupees Twenty

By Anukriti Roy
First publised on 2021-02-06 15:09:42

About the Author

Anukriti is a student who dabbles in writing when she finds time.

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In a disturbing incident, an idli seller on the outskirts of Mumbai (Mira Road in Thane district) was killed by three persons as an argument over Rs 20 escalated into a fight. In the resulting melee, the vendor was pushed and fell on the ground, hurting his head. As the miscreants fled, local people took him to a nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead.

This is not the first time that a person was killed following an argument over such petty amount of money. A couple of years ago, in a similar incident, a person was killed after he got into a fight with another person over Rs 10 in the Kalighat area of Kolkata.

Even as we read about scams involving mind boggling sums of money and television shows and movies show people talking about crores of rupees, it is extremely distressing to know that people still get killed for amounts that even street beggars treat as petty change.

How do people fly into a rage potent enough to kill someone else for such small sums? It is not immediately known whether the Mira Road incident was an accident after an argument or was due to personal enmity, but the Kalighat incident was purely for getting back Rs 10 loaned to the victim. Has human life become so inconsequential that people can kill for Rs 10 or 20?

In situations such as the above, it is often uncontrolled rage that makes a human being kill another. This shows the need for anger management and counseling. It is good that there is increased focus on mental health nowadays as that is one area of wellbeing that was either made fun of (someone with mental health problems is derisively referred as mad) or ignored completely. Rage is a mental health problem and has to be addressed through counseling, yoga/exercise or meditation or a combination of any two or all three.