Thursday, October 2, 2008

What I'm doing awake at this hour besides getting magnificent download speeds, and a stiff back is beyond me. Although I suspect it has a little something to do with having spent nearly half the day in medicine induced stupor. Common cold, it seems needs a combination of a 3-3-4 dose of the blue-yellow-blue-multicoloured tablets.

MANY Self prolonged random unnecessary falling-sick events have led me to visit a doctor within the first 2 days of feeling sick. This fares wonderfully in comparison to NOT visiting a doctor unless COMPLETELY miserable and then finally having to deal with antibiotics and scoldings by the new-enthused-i-was-so-right-you-shouldve-gone-to-the doc mother. (err, love u mom).

If you watched the news today, you've probably heard about the serial blasts in Tripura. Im beginning to wonder if theres a pattern here - twice a week, north-east-west-north or maybe bike-train-cycle-bike... Its just become a routine news bulletin -'Breaking news - 17 llive bombs found at xyz' or 'Breaking news - 5 low intensity bombs in xyz'. What is the Government doing about it? What is the media doing about it? What are WE doing about it?

Im sure even reporters have templated stories ready - just fill in the blank type documents.

" Bomb Blast in ___ kills___ and injures___. Bomb was found in tiffin/cycle/bike and left by two scarf/helmet/unidentified motorists. This happened in the heavily crowded area of____ at peak ___ hrs. Police are yet to identify who would be responsible for the blasts, and have so far arrested ___suspects. "

Has it really become that simple to disrupt public peace and instill fear, ACTUAL fear among us that the mention of the word 'bomb' and 5000 people got evacuated from BKC in Mumbai today, or that 150 people died of a stampede after the crowd ran amock hearing the dreaded word. Really, do we need Mr Raj T'rey to be spreading panic among Mumabikars? we seem to be doing a darn good job ourselves.

Its a matter of Public shame that our country is subject to these acts of terror, that the police continue to be clueless about how to tackle it, about how police forces and governments of various states do no work in synch towards the common cause of eliminating terror from the country. POTA is outdated - but who cares right?

As if quality of life - increased exposure to passive smoking, polluted envoirnment, stress related ailments and unhealthy lifestyles werent enough to reduce our life-span, we now need to worry about not accidentally picking up an unknown object on the road, (tiffin boxes emerging as the most threatening, who wouldve thought) or being in market places prone to bomb blasts, or tavel in trains at office hours, or being in a line at a religious site. This list shall be updated as when necessary.

The safest option emerges - staying home. If your living in Mumbai - you might want to reconsider - some buildings have a tendency to just fall apart.

Live and Let live anyone?

3 comments:

Kalyan Karmakar said...

tell me about download speeds while blogging from home. The recent terror spell are a shame. I wonder how long this anrchy will go on

Serendipity said...

@ The knife - Its a pity.

Farcenal said...

Heh, I love how this turned into an anti-government rant. So much these days, does.

I'm amazed at how unattached, unresponsive and down right indifferent I feel about hearing these terrible stories coming out of India - I am ashamed but I'm being honest. When I was back in India, I would sit and watch NDTV for about an hour or two after a bomb went off. I would call up the relatives I had in the affected city, I indeed I had any. And then get back to life again: Facebook and msn. Now however, I barely hear about these attacks, let alone panic/lose sleep. Do you really fear for YOUR life when these things happen to our fair country?

There is little or no media coverage of it here. I suppose I'll have to make ndtv.com my homepage just to stay up to date with current affairs!

I remember reading a statistic like "more than 600 people have died as a result of terrorist attacks in Bombay alone in the last 15 years". That is more than 10 times as many people that died in the London tube bombings in 2005. And look at the media whiplash that caused. Will the same happen in India? Apparently not.