Bombay Blues

I can't help feeling so entirely frustrated and helpless as the firing and the terror continues in Bombay.. Everyone has an opinion on it and most are just so confusing.. its a little bit sickening to see TIMES now harp about how many cameras they have on each building and how they are bringing the real authentic trust when other channels have contrasting reports.. People are hoarding around nariman house as though its a match or something.. then someone will get shot at outside and they'll blame the police for not being prepared enough..

There are already a hoard of reports about how the people of india have to stand united.. the idiots on TIMES now actually showed a picture of the trident and said "if an inanimate building can stand tall, the one billion people have much more strength" In the middle of a huge mess what a stupid thing to say! Then he went on to ask the journalist whether she had a life jacket or not and she said no.. maybe they should get someone to buy one and give it to her... i mean, i'm very proud of her bravery but i also think they should get her to wear a bullet proof vest instead of making her the hero thats reporting in teh face of danger and perhaps the hero that might die in the line of duty later! And thats the problem..we come up against situations like these and then the reports of resilience and how people stood together take over and we step up security for a bit and then everyone forgets.. No one knows whether we killed the right people or caught the right people.. whether they should be hung or not..

Most people i know on various sites and dumb RJ's on radio mirchi are constantly saying we should take a lesson from America and deal with terrorism like they did ... these are all the same people who stand around talking against the kind of actions america took when they plunged the world into a huge war which eventually led to the recession we face now.. The terrorists actually went into the hotels to kill foreign nationals.. its all actually a repercussion of the way America handled 9/11 and now people want india to do something similar.. declare another war and have more people all over the world dead! Everyone thinks we should change the way we deal with such situations.. i think we shouldn't have such situations in the first place! People across the country have been talking about the poor condition of the coast guard anyway.. unfortunately it has now led to this..

Many libral people who i agree with on many things stand against the death penalty.. but for me ..i don't know... i don't think there is any excuse for holding the lives of so many people to ransom.. i don't think it matters what kind of a background someone comes from if they go around shooting people without a second thought.. i don't think they should try to capture such people i think they should be shot dead. But what is more important i think.. is that the conditions that are creating these situations be addressed. It doesn't help to lock up a bunch of people on suspicion.. the real ass!@#&s are still free, convincing more young people to go and kill.. So i'm as confused as ever.. i find myself agreeing with the statements about need for action..i don't know if we should deal with it like America and start killing and arresting and attacking even more muslims than we normally do in the guise of a war on terror.. God help the country if the BJP comes to power in such a tense environment coz i think as things stand.. the jingoistic nationalism that prevails in our country is geared towards approving and actually inciting another pogrom to kill "muslim terrorists" and equating indian muslims with pakistani terrorists..

In the middle of it all i am also forced to wonder like ishita, how many "outsiders" were among the police people trying to save bombay from the terror attacks tight now and where raj thakeray is right now.. perhaps his marathi manus will now shift focus from outsiders in general to muslim outsiders.. or perhaps all muslims.. inside and outside! In a country that is so divided all the time that its government sits silently twiddling its thumbs when people kill each other in the name of god.. i wonder why its shocking when some more die for the same reasons.. perhaps because the ones doing the killings this time are really "outsiders" and perhaps because the only thing they believe in is violence.. We all want to end this terror that disrupted our lives so we can go on killing each other in peace. The news channels have more material to make slick reports and find newer innovative names for "operation terror" Slick voice overs with urgent background music announces what the army has done as though it were a trailer for a film.. the slickness of the news reports with copious self aggrandizement by the channels through in makes me more and more sick.. The radio mirchi RJs blaming politicians and saying we should take hard steps like america remind me of Mr Bush's "you are either with us or against us" that in a big way has led to such situations in the first place.. accounts of the hostages and the smses and calls coming from them make me feel so very helpless and afraid.. i don't know what to think and i don't know how to deal.. sitting at home in delhi i have the luxury of shutting off the television and diverting my attention.. but i can't help but wonder how any of my friends or family in bombay could have been at CST, they could have been eating at leopolds or the taj.. any of them could have been dead.. and tomorrow it might be me... A little dramatic perhaps.. but honestly.. it has never been scarier to be in urban india than it is today.. finally we get a taste of what so many other pockets face every day and we don't like it .. and we don't know what to do..