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Mom knows that I rarely keep track of events outside the business world, except when it comes to sports, perhaps.
I was asleep when the message beeped on my cell phone.
"5 blasts in Mumbai local trains"
I woke up, read the message, asked my room-mate to read out the contents of various news websites, shrugged, put on a t-shirt and went out for dinner. On the way down, I stopped at the first floor TV-room, saw a few visuals of the devastation and walked away cursing those who were responsible.
I am ashamed to admit this. As I walked to the Dhaba with a friend, we debated what could be the possible reason for the blasts. "They've attacked at the heart of Mumbai when they attack the local railway lines," I said with an air of supreme knowledge about the city, a city in which I have only spent 2 months for my summer training. "If they, whoever 'they' might be, think they're going to be able to upset the stock markets by this, they're highly mistaken. The markets will react only for a day, two at the most, but the credentials of the economy are strongly in place."
Rightly said, mate. So what if you've been voicing your opinion against a particular system; you've been through MBA training for a year, and that is bound to have some effect, on you, right? Of course, the so-called-manager that you're gonna become must be more worried about money and nervous reactions of the Bombay sensex rather than the naked dance of death that had created havoc.
I came back to the hostel, and had to wait till a multicast on IP from 'Nike' put my brains back to the right place. He sent a link of a news report which included a video of the aftermath of the blasts.
That is when it happened.
All I could wonder, as I viewed this part of the video was, "What was HIS fault?"
He could well have been my brother or my next door neighbour. What was his fault?
I DON'T CARE OR GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WHAT REASONS WHICHEVER MILITANT GROUP HAS FOR THIS BARBARIC ACT.
What was the poor man's fault? He was just another Mumbai-kar, working hard to make two ends meet and travelling by the same local trains by which millions travelled each day. Did he deserve this death? Did his parents deserve the death of their child? Can you imagine a white haired gentleman standing with tears in his eyes, wondering what to say to a wailing mother who has lost a 30-32 year old son? What consolation does one give to the dead man's young wife who had perhaps dreamt of a wonderful things in the future?
What did the people responsible for this attack gain by this young man's death ??
Life goes on...I am about to head down for a cup of tea so that I may stay awake for the next few hours, reading a chapter out of "Investments and Portfolio Management". My IP messenger is flooded with requests for "Superman Returns" and "Corporate". Someone has also requested for a romantic Hemant Kumar number, which on ANY other night, I would've heard with a smile.
And though the humdrum of life carries on, in my mind, I can still hear shrieks of a woman who has lost her son...a son who I didn't know, a son who I'll never know. All I'll ever know is the statistic that one more person died at the Mumbai blasts that rocked 7 suburban railway stations on 11th July 2007.
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[Appended at 3:09 AM, 12th July]
Bravo. Like I said I was already "more worried about money and nervous reactions of the Bombay sensex". Seems like I'm thinking the ET way. And of course, concerns about stock movements can be well hidden behind headlines such as "Bombed but not bowed".
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To hell with the 'matlabi' khabar... check this out for help on the Mumbai blasts.
MUMBAI HELP
10 comments:
Today my voice is choked, my flute is without note,
The prison of the no-moon night
Has extinguished my world, given me nightmares;
And this is why I ask, through my tears:
Those who poison your air and blot out the sun;
Do You truly forgive them, do You truly love them?
-Rabindranath Tagore (from The Question)
narcissus: A mournful silence in the memory of the dead fills the air.
well all i can say is i feel sick and disgusted abt the whole incident!
Dont have words to express how repulsive this whole act has been...hope those who have done this get enugh punishment for their sins!
anand: Amen, Anand, Amen !!
I am reading a lot of tripe in the newspapers about the “resilient Mumbai spirit”.
Of course Mumbai will recover. So did NYC. So did London. So did Jerusalem. So did Madrid. So will any city.
In fact the cockroach is one of nature’s most resilient creatures and can survive even a nuclear blast. (Though I have never heard a cockroach going around saying, “Mera Gutter Mahaan.”)
Are we cockroaches?
As my dear friend and doctor extraordinaire Aashish puts it:
“I think we are so good at 'handling' anything thrown at us, just because we're much better prepared than others. Years of travelling in the local train ( Kumar Ketkar of Loksatta, correctly called them mobile concentration camps) will condition a person to adapt under any circumstances.”
Our PM and CM appealed for calm; we are calm.
Even though 200 innocent Mumbaikars lost their lives and 700 lie injured in hospitals.
Now we would like to know what are they doing?
Last week our city went down under after heavy showers and after the initial outrage at the lack of proper drainage systems, everything was back to normal.
If you saw the movie, Munich, Golda Meir immediately responds to the assassination of the Israeli athletes with Operation Wrath of God.
Operation Wrath of God, also called Operation Bayonet, was a covert operation directed by Israel and the Mossad to assassinate the terrorists who directly or indirectly perpetrated the 1972 Munich Massacre. Authorized to begin by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the fall of 1972, it may have continued for more than 20 years.
We would like to know when will the government initiate our Operation Wrath of God?
Our self respect, honour, and most importantly, lives are at stake.
Your thoughts are most welcome and thank you for your time
you think of the parents , i think of the children , the problem remains , that we only THINK
newnimproved: Thanks mate.
arpz: Very true. [sad look]
Where did you find it? Interesting read » » »
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