I'm heart broken! My city is under attack yet again! And i feel what everyone else does. Anger, despair, helplessness...at how fragile we are!
What breaks my heart is not just what happened in Mumbai tonight, but also the reactions i see around me. From people who are educated, responsible citizens. These otherwise rational citizens went through the same emotions as I did. And i empathised, identified, right up to the point when messages abusing the government, kasab, the police, the intelligence began doing the rounds. Then came forwards about corruption, followed by slogans against the powers that be, then the patriotism which then went into some hideous rumour mongering. Suddenly everyone had the inside information on what was going on, while sitting in their clubs, restaurants, air conditioned homes. So while people forwarded rumours without checking the authenticity, panic spread, And all of us helped in doing it.
I actually had the audacity to send out a message requesting people to stop using the phones unless it was important! "Why jam the lines?" I said, and got an instant lesson in the running of cell phone companies and a lecture on their levels of corruption!
Meanwhile, my battery drained and my family could not get in touch with me and continued to worry. I've decided to be a responsible person in future. If i can't help, at least i won't hinder!
Chaos is irrational Varshaa but it sells more papers... it gets more TRPs and its just more entertaining than any kind of compassion. It is sad that London blasts and 9/11 evoke such tales of horror but the regular blasts in the Indian subcontinent are taken with such alacrity and with the great Indian shrug - we are like that only. Everyone will get irrational tonight, emotions and rumors will run high, and Mumbai will go right back to "normal" whatever that word has come to mean....
ReplyDeleteI pretty mch agree ..but as they say the reality is only felt by the one who bore it rest are all tales
ReplyDeleteand yes about corruption I would say its in and in too far for us to come out of it Taj was a clear example of corruption than laps in security . Men died of their own colleges stupidity which is carried further with today's example .Nothing has made no difference to corrupt officials no wonders ammunition is still baught in the city as it was earlier
.......We as citizens have the right to be fragile may be somewhere its this fragile attitude that's letting it all happen however should a common man get out on streets and question the bureaucracy and the corrupt security agencies of this country ,We have seen splendid job done by the security agencies but when we look closer arnt they just trying to cover up their own mistakes ...should we be disgusted with our own Army and naval chiefs than the terrorist outfits who just bought them over
ReplyDeleteMost people cant help themselves but to cross chat and inform others thinking that they are doing a noble action but not realising that they are creating more problems for the ones who are in the midst of figuring out the situation. On TV what one saw was the Cops putting in so much effort to keep the crowd away from the bomb blast scene than investigating the crime scene. We Indian need to grow up and stop this idiotic curiosity !
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