Hi
Sorry about the delay in posting, but my broadband connection died a quite untimely death and I had to get a new one. Also, power cuts have been more frequent since the rain stopped...the irony of life - power cuts lasting 3 hours will occur exclusively in the summer, just when one needs electricity the most.
Well, last week serial blasts rocked Mumbai...my aunt, who lives there, always catches the 6:15 train from Bandra station (where the first blast occured) - but on the 11th she decided to come home early, thank god. But lots of her friends and colleagues were injured. And you know what the worst part was? The Intelligence Bureau had PRIOR info that a terrorist strike was about to occur. After the blasts, every official was quick to point out that it was a terrorist attack. If you already knew that guys, why didn't you do anything about it, pray?
The most ridiculous aspect of this whole tragedy was the US's apparent indifference to declaring a high-alert there, even though the American people were quite disturbed (those that were interviewed, at least). Dubya probably thought that what happened back here in poor old India could hardly affect the impenetrable wall that was the US security. And we thought OUR intelligence guys weren't good....
What this catastrophe also brought to the fore was our media's insatiable appetite for anything American. Every news channel referred to the disaster as 7/11 (a la 9/11) and was quick to point out the (apparent) series - 9/11, 7/7, 7/11...yes, that's exactly what we need, isn't it - a set of dates involving the numbers 9, 11 and 7 to be petrified about. The only good thing that emerged from this calamity as well was the city's absolute refusal to be bogged down by anything - people were going back to work the next day, in the very same trains that had proved to be their doom. But here materializes an oft-asked question - is the city becoming easy prey for such attacks? Even though the people of the city always try to put these tragedies behind them and move on, the authorities don't seem to get it. Mumbai is one of our major cities and we just don't seem to care about it enough. The red tape isn't allowing the city to progress as far as infrastructure is concerned. It isn't that the city is an easy target. It's just that Mumbai, just like most other Indian cities, doesn't have a clear cut disaster-management system in place, giving the attackers the two greatest advantages of all - the element of surprise as well as the ensuing chaos. Combine that with the lack of infrastructure and the dense population, and you have the ideal place to hold a terrorist attack. Still not convinced? Didn't any of you ever wonder why those guys chose to place the bombs of 7/7 in London? Or why they crashed the September 11 planes in NEW YORK? Sure, it didn't have an infrastructure problem, but New York City didn't have a disaster-management plan on hold just then, and was as jam-packed as hell.
Anyway, here's to all those innocent people who lost their lives in the attack. May your souls rest in peace and eventually achieve the retribution they deserve.
Mnemosyne
