The Rumor Bomb

Hey guys,

Today i feel totally devastated on hearing the news of stampede which plucked 5 innocent lives in Delhi high school.

The devastation is more since it is caused due to rumour bomb.I am not able to understand why all these unnecessary hoax originate without even thinking of the consequences.

I am here to share such an incident happened in Tamilnadu and its after effects.

It was a sunny sunday afternoon and waiting for my 2 year old boy to get up from his sleep to immunise him againt polio. Yes that was Polio day in both Tamilnadu and Karnataka.

After making sure that there in no long standing queue in the polio booth my wife and mother took him for polio vaccine.

Within 10 minutes of their exit my father called me to tell me a horrifying news that 3 children died in another polio booth in our city due to the vaccine. I immediately rushed to our booth to stop them from administering but it was too late as i could see my son gulping chocolates at the nearby store. I was shell shocked and not able to react. When i switched on my idiot box one tamil news channel was flashing this many dead in these districts and so on.

I then called my friend who is a paediatrician and was enquiring about the side effects or symptoms of vaccine failure and i passed on the message to my wife. He asked me to keep my kid under observation for 4 hours.

As a father and husband not able to show my stress rushed out of my home to a nearby hospital to see whats going on. Adding fuel to fire whoever i met, where telling me stories of this many death here, there and everywhere. Hospitals were overflowing with most of the parents with their kid ..............in a state very hard to explain.

Those four hours of observation on my kid for any signs or symptoms as a father has no words.

The next day it was claimed as hoax to the relief of all.

The next dose of polio drops which was just few weeks away had very few takers as a result of the previous shock caused by the rumour.

In Psychology of Rumor, Gordon Allport and Joseph Postman concluded that, "as rumor travels it [...] grows shorter, more concise, more easily grasped and told."

The animals(it is insulting animals though) who are involved in these kind of rumors should be ordered capital punishment and it should echo in each and everyone's ears before trying to utter any of these kind.

This rumour bomb punishment should also include the politicians who give promises during election and treat it as words written in running water.

Its high time for the younger generation to break the shackles and make a hybrid society devoid of polluting agents in all forms.

Adios.