In the daily horror of this year’s news cycle, it’s difficult to be shocked.

But all yesterday I couldn’t stop thinking about Bikram Lama, with both shame and sadness.

Could it really happen here in Sydney, that a man could lie dead, in his sleeping bag, on the ground, for six days, near St James station, as thousands of commuters streamed past his decomposing body?

I guess it could happen here, because it did.

A Guardian investigation revealed that a former international student, 32-year-old Lama, had died at central Sydney’s St James station in December where he had been sleeping rough. Up to 100,000 people transited through the station in the days before his body was found. He had been unable to access any services due to not being an Australian citizen.

Lama’s death seems to point towards some Rubicon being crossed for this city.

There’s an unwritten contract that I had assumed was still intact in Sydney. That is, we are all human beings, we acknowledge each other as such – and we see each other. We may not always help each other but at least there is some level of recognition.

People aren’t so invisible that they are literally left to rot beside one of the busiest thoroughfares in Sydney.

(Or as Arthur Miller wrote of this social contract in Death of a Salesman, “He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must........

© The Guardian