My daughter, while cutting up from the chair in the evening took a nasty scratch on her finger. Then she cried, then slept and then woke up as if nothing had happened. But I could still feel the pinch, there is something sad inside for not being able to prevent that. That was a small scratch, and that is not going to be the last one, but then should I be jubiliant in the fact that she has gotten over it, should I tell her that as she goes out to school and work later, she will be facing such agonies every day.
It was just a small scar, and it did cut me so deep, there were children around Sarojini Nagar market when the blast happen couple of years back and there on Mumbai station, where when Pak trained terrorists arrived, to the utter dismay of Raj Thackaray only a "Bhaiyya" of RPF stood the ground with his embarassed '303 in the face of sophesticated AK-47 and other weapons carried by Ajmal Kasab and his company, who initially claimed to have reached Mumbai to find a role in Movies, right from Pakistan and fully-loaded. What there parents would be feeling, assuming they did not unfortunately loose their lives with their kids. Damned circumstances change the perspectives so disturbingly, staying alive when your loved ones are gone does not seem like a great fortune.
Our government has done just what I could never do, claiming the advantage out of forced resilience and telling the citizens in no uncertain terms that it is totally incapable of protecting its citizens.
Raj Thackaray says it is because of North Indians, and Digvijay Singh says, we must cherish that we are much better off than Pakistan. Oh how so sympathetic is he about the plight of Pakistan, which seems to be only state apparantly looking welcoming him now that his own state wants to have none of him, given the constant scheming maneauvers that he was always busy in, with no scheme for the benefit of the state which he ruled. Will we never have enough of such politicians? Did we throw the last slipper that we had on Suresh Kalmadi?
The government acts as an autocrat drunk on its own power. Why these incidents happen in Mumbai, our politicians say it is because it represents India's growth story, I say, stop bull-xxxxxing. You can not handle my fury so you try to stroke my ego. My daughter gets hurt and I tell her, since I was not able to protect her, you are my brave baby, you will get up again, nothing will hurt you..damn, this government credits its citizens with the intellegence of a three year old. These incidents happen because there is something terrible at the very basic level.
1. Does an average Mumbaikar thinks the stock market runs on the power of its own. The financial engines of Mumbai derives power from vaccuum. The rapidly running numbers on those glorious screens of Dalal streets do not exist in air, they are driven by the money they make on account of things they produce and services they provide- hold your breath..not in Mumbai, all across India. Somebody can put those damn, LCD screens in Dantewada and those screens would show the same movement. If with all India's might behind it, six shady gunmen can land on its coast, can Mumbai stay as Swiss Neutral ground for a day if it were to be independent of the larger constituency which is India or will it be immediately annexed by the home country of those very gunmen? As these questions to those very politicians who tell you otherwise as to why Major Unnikrishnan had to die protecting the city which gave the slogen of Pungi Bajao, Lungi bhagao? It is for the citizens to first understand and decide not to get intoxicated by stupid statements of stupid politicians and shun them away of any public space. You need to come together to reclaim your space in the larger plain, and show it to those menial minds that your intelligence is above their rhetoric.
2. In the US, which we many times quote with reference to success in putting end to terrorist events since the last one eleven years back. We must understand, it is not because of their zingoistic invasion of Iraq or Afganistan, it is becuase of the fact that they did put in place a system with accountability. It is to be done at the lowest level with a sincerity of the highest level. In there, I did not come across frisking in the malls, because it was not needed. The metal detectors once placed do work, so do the CCTV once installed. We, too as a knee jert reaction do put the equipments, but never place a system. CCTV installed in Karol Bag does not work, someone must be taking salary for the upkeep of the equipment. Why no one gets fired? Can we citizens come together to do the audit with RTI to check for all major markets and other places about security equipments deployed, name of the officer responsible for upkeep and status. We do have such system for the Lifts, why not for CCTVs and metal detectors.
3. Creating a national will, and stopping the crap. In US, they have Patriot Bill, in India, we have Arundhati Roy. Digvijay Singh says something about everything controversial. He can not restrain, he is an old man scared of oblivion. He wants to stay in News, so he raises issue on Batla House encounter, raises charges on Lokayukta Santosh Hegde and next day claims he never knew him, even on 26/11 claims unsubstantiated telephonic conversation with Martyr late Hemant Karkare. His party uses his buffoonery as a diversionary tactics, like a billboard with bathing beauty to distract attention from the serious questions of governance. The utter disgust he creates in any intelligent man's mind, shadows his reasoning and he forgets what he was fighting about. We have no way to keep him shut or silent or out of public polity, nor do we have anything for Amar Singh or other such people on either side of political divide. It sends a message to people at lower level of government machinary about how they are supposed to act and it percolates to policeman on the beat and the Municipal officer who is to upkeep the security equipments and who does not see the sixteen story Adarsh building till it hits the media reports.
3. The government in terms of political and diplomatic posturing is a disaster. No one know what drives the policy. We tell the world we will not engage with Pak till 26/11 perpetrators are arrested, and then nothing happens and after a while US signs Nuclear deal, some pestering, some cajoling, and we are back on the talk table. We ask Pakistan to hand over terrorists, those we have have merry time here, between courts and mercy petitions. We do not even have the courage to look US in the eye and ask for Richard Headley. He has signed mercy petition with US court not with Indian court, where he caused maximum damage. Why we do not ask for him to be expatriated to India? PM, who speaks to his own countrymen only four times in seven years, vax eloquent about necessity to dialog, he speaks to Pakistan, why no one knows. He does not think he needs to speak to the Parliament as he deviates from the position taken in front of the parliament post 26/11, after all he is not elected prime minister but a selected prime minister. He looks like a feeble man when asked to act against corruption, but he roars when he tells CAG and even the court to stay away from his turf. US will not fight our war for us, we need to make out own points. Why can't we live without speaking with Pakistan, why can we not have a clear foreign policy. One arm of the government talks about worries we have from the Chinese, other instructs government telcoes to re-release the RFPs to accomodate chinese vendors. No one questions, it is business as usual.
4. We need to not only be tough with others, we need to be tough with ourselves. Will we come out and tell the lady flashing prada, to come in a queue when entering common place even when the guy in front of her might be a rikshaw-driver? Why do we always want to park the car in front of the shop, we want to go in? Can't we park it little far off to create order, instead of pulling right upto footstep fo the shop and then going to the Gym in the evening to run five miles. And let the anger cause the change, this Mumbaikar's resilience is a crap, what option do they have? Even if a blast happens in our workplace and the office opens next day, what will we do, Mumbaikar or no mumbaikar, we will go to the office, more so if we are getting paid on per-day basis and just enough to feed the family a descent, midnight supper (descent not balanced, nutritional one). These events build on small cracks of corruption which are to be acted upon.
It was just a small scar, and it did cut me so deep, there were children around Sarojini Nagar market when the blast happen couple of years back and there on Mumbai station, where when Pak trained terrorists arrived, to the utter dismay of Raj Thackaray only a "Bhaiyya" of RPF stood the ground with his embarassed '303 in the face of sophesticated AK-47 and other weapons carried by Ajmal Kasab and his company, who initially claimed to have reached Mumbai to find a role in Movies, right from Pakistan and fully-loaded. What there parents would be feeling, assuming they did not unfortunately loose their lives with their kids. Damned circumstances change the perspectives so disturbingly, staying alive when your loved ones are gone does not seem like a great fortune.
Our government has done just what I could never do, claiming the advantage out of forced resilience and telling the citizens in no uncertain terms that it is totally incapable of protecting its citizens.
Raj Thackaray says it is because of North Indians, and Digvijay Singh says, we must cherish that we are much better off than Pakistan. Oh how so sympathetic is he about the plight of Pakistan, which seems to be only state apparantly looking welcoming him now that his own state wants to have none of him, given the constant scheming maneauvers that he was always busy in, with no scheme for the benefit of the state which he ruled. Will we never have enough of such politicians? Did we throw the last slipper that we had on Suresh Kalmadi?
The government acts as an autocrat drunk on its own power. Why these incidents happen in Mumbai, our politicians say it is because it represents India's growth story, I say, stop bull-xxxxxing. You can not handle my fury so you try to stroke my ego. My daughter gets hurt and I tell her, since I was not able to protect her, you are my brave baby, you will get up again, nothing will hurt you..damn, this government credits its citizens with the intellegence of a three year old. These incidents happen because there is something terrible at the very basic level.
1. Does an average Mumbaikar thinks the stock market runs on the power of its own. The financial engines of Mumbai derives power from vaccuum. The rapidly running numbers on those glorious screens of Dalal streets do not exist in air, they are driven by the money they make on account of things they produce and services they provide- hold your breath..not in Mumbai, all across India. Somebody can put those damn, LCD screens in Dantewada and those screens would show the same movement. If with all India's might behind it, six shady gunmen can land on its coast, can Mumbai stay as Swiss Neutral ground for a day if it were to be independent of the larger constituency which is India or will it be immediately annexed by the home country of those very gunmen? As these questions to those very politicians who tell you otherwise as to why Major Unnikrishnan had to die protecting the city which gave the slogen of Pungi Bajao, Lungi bhagao? It is for the citizens to first understand and decide not to get intoxicated by stupid statements of stupid politicians and shun them away of any public space. You need to come together to reclaim your space in the larger plain, and show it to those menial minds that your intelligence is above their rhetoric.
2. In the US, which we many times quote with reference to success in putting end to terrorist events since the last one eleven years back. We must understand, it is not because of their zingoistic invasion of Iraq or Afganistan, it is becuase of the fact that they did put in place a system with accountability. It is to be done at the lowest level with a sincerity of the highest level. In there, I did not come across frisking in the malls, because it was not needed. The metal detectors once placed do work, so do the CCTV once installed. We, too as a knee jert reaction do put the equipments, but never place a system. CCTV installed in Karol Bag does not work, someone must be taking salary for the upkeep of the equipment. Why no one gets fired? Can we citizens come together to do the audit with RTI to check for all major markets and other places about security equipments deployed, name of the officer responsible for upkeep and status. We do have such system for the Lifts, why not for CCTVs and metal detectors.
3. Creating a national will, and stopping the crap. In US, they have Patriot Bill, in India, we have Arundhati Roy. Digvijay Singh says something about everything controversial. He can not restrain, he is an old man scared of oblivion. He wants to stay in News, so he raises issue on Batla House encounter, raises charges on Lokayukta Santosh Hegde and next day claims he never knew him, even on 26/11 claims unsubstantiated telephonic conversation with Martyr late Hemant Karkare. His party uses his buffoonery as a diversionary tactics, like a billboard with bathing beauty to distract attention from the serious questions of governance. The utter disgust he creates in any intelligent man's mind, shadows his reasoning and he forgets what he was fighting about. We have no way to keep him shut or silent or out of public polity, nor do we have anything for Amar Singh or other such people on either side of political divide. It sends a message to people at lower level of government machinary about how they are supposed to act and it percolates to policeman on the beat and the Municipal officer who is to upkeep the security equipments and who does not see the sixteen story Adarsh building till it hits the media reports.
3. The government in terms of political and diplomatic posturing is a disaster. No one know what drives the policy. We tell the world we will not engage with Pak till 26/11 perpetrators are arrested, and then nothing happens and after a while US signs Nuclear deal, some pestering, some cajoling, and we are back on the talk table. We ask Pakistan to hand over terrorists, those we have have merry time here, between courts and mercy petitions. We do not even have the courage to look US in the eye and ask for Richard Headley. He has signed mercy petition with US court not with Indian court, where he caused maximum damage. Why we do not ask for him to be expatriated to India? PM, who speaks to his own countrymen only four times in seven years, vax eloquent about necessity to dialog, he speaks to Pakistan, why no one knows. He does not think he needs to speak to the Parliament as he deviates from the position taken in front of the parliament post 26/11, after all he is not elected prime minister but a selected prime minister. He looks like a feeble man when asked to act against corruption, but he roars when he tells CAG and even the court to stay away from his turf. US will not fight our war for us, we need to make out own points. Why can't we live without speaking with Pakistan, why can we not have a clear foreign policy. One arm of the government talks about worries we have from the Chinese, other instructs government telcoes to re-release the RFPs to accomodate chinese vendors. No one questions, it is business as usual.
4. We need to not only be tough with others, we need to be tough with ourselves. Will we come out and tell the lady flashing prada, to come in a queue when entering common place even when the guy in front of her might be a rikshaw-driver? Why do we always want to park the car in front of the shop, we want to go in? Can't we park it little far off to create order, instead of pulling right upto footstep fo the shop and then going to the Gym in the evening to run five miles. And let the anger cause the change, this Mumbaikar's resilience is a crap, what option do they have? Even if a blast happens in our workplace and the office opens next day, what will we do, Mumbaikar or no mumbaikar, we will go to the office, more so if we are getting paid on per-day basis and just enough to feed the family a descent, midnight supper (descent not balanced, nutritional one). These events build on small cracks of corruption which are to be acted upon.
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