Terrorist Attacks, the Government and We - The Common People

Recently, people have been talking a lot about how much the government is to be blamed for the repeated terrorist attacks.

I am totally against terrorism and surely do not support it. But what are we blaming the government for? WHAT ABOUT US? When 9/11 happened, simple men like fire fighters, teachers, policemen, doctors, nurses, travelled all the way from far away states like Florida or California to help out the wounded and the families of the dead. Can  you tell me how many Indians went all the way from Calcutta, or Mumbai, or Delhi to Orissa when it was devastated by Tsunami; or when did people from all across the country go all the way to Mumbai during any of the blasts to save the wounded? I did not go. Shamefully I did not. But much more shamelessly, I am not sitting in my plush bed room or snazzy office and writing updates in social network sites showing the world, "LOOK HOW MUCH I CARE. SO HANG THEM."

How many people - ordinary people like you and me - cooperate with the police or cost guards to expand the horizon of vigilance because this population is too chaotic, diverse, and huge to control and keep an eye on? HOW MAY HAVE DONE? It is a lot easier to assemble below Gateway of India with candles. That does not do any good. We Indians are very fond of hoypoloi. But hardly any of us talk or do anything constructively. 

People say that just because we are paying a lot of taxes, the government is responsible for every odd thing that happens. NOW WHAT HELL OF TAX ARE WE PAYING CAN SOMEONE PLEASE JUSTIFY? Every other Indian has a tax consultant to somehow evade taxes. Will you pay tax like the French or German pay? Will you let the government extract huge taxes from you, more from a CEO and negligible from a cobbler so that not just your child can get free education and medical treatment throughout life but so does a CEO's son and also the cobbler's child? WILL ANYONE HERE PAY HIGH TAX HONESTLY? I am telling the truth. All those BLOODY SCOUNDRELS who buy the best of the luxury sedans in the market with BLACK/DIRTY MONEY will NOT PAY A SINGLE PENNY of TAX. And we expect our Cost Guard to be world class?

Tell me one thing straight: HOW MANY CARORPATIS WE KNOW WHO HAVE EVEN THOUGHT OF FUNDING FOR STATE OF THE ART EQUIPMENT AND SPECIALIZED TRAINING FOR THE POLICE OR COAST GUARD? If ordinary men cannot do anything, why is not the rich doing? Simply because in this country people think only about themselves. They keep saying to themselves: 'ONLY ME, ME and ME. Why do I need to be bothered if someone dies next door? It is not me or my family. Right?' 

Do you know the salary of a normal coast guard or ordinary police man given the important work that he does? Much more less than the salary that you or I get for doing work that is not even a hundredth as important as his? AND WHAT SERVICE DO WE EXPECT IN EXCHANGE FOR THAT?

For Heaven's Sake, when will people stop the senseless jabbering around me and do at least a little bit of what they are supposed to do?

For Greater Good - PVR and its Nest

Working with PVR Nest on the Annual CSR Report of PVR Cinemas had been another priceless experience for me, not just in terms of adding value to my own awareness of the social sector and what, why and how more and more good is done to the world, but also in terms of taking another step forward in the quest of finding out my own self.

PVR Nest, undoubtedly, is doing very good work, irrespective of the scale of work. The entire team of this department, I strongly believe, is in this profession not by compulsion but by choice – the choice that is difficult to make as it approaches socialism by staying inside a capitalistic system.

My role in the annual report, 2011, had been to make a photographic documentary of the initiatives taken by PVR Nest – the CSR wing of PVR Cinemas, as well as taking interviews at field so as to document flesh and blood stories that reinsert in ones intellectual capacity the need of an intensity of efforts that have to be focused at bringing a lot of change if we are truly serious of making India a developed nation and save us from the shame of not ending up as Goldman Sachs once predicted. BRIC would perhaps end up as BRC.

The theory of PVR Nest is that PVR should have, and has, a sense of responsibility towards the development of the communities around every PVR cinema. From there sprang the idea of devoting towards community mobilization near some PVR complexes. Thus, PVR Nest has been into an important work of identification of endangered children in slums, rehabilitating them, and then preparing them for either livelihood generation or education. At the same time, PVR Nest is also into providing education to slum children in general, food distribution to them, and also generating awareness among slum dwellers regarding environmental and health issues. PVR Nest has been into collaboration with NGOs like Diya Foundation, Literacy India, and a few others.

That which struck me as truly valuable work is the identification of slum children who are victims of addiction to drugs and excessive alcohol, rescuing them from such a state, rehabilitating them to bring them back to normal, and then providing education to them or finding out opportunities of employment for those who have crossed the minimum age limit of starting to learn how to read and write from the scratch.

PVR Nest, unquestionably, is doing good work. I hope this stays in the long run and grows further. We need a lot of good in this world to heal its wounds. Unfortunately we do not have sufficient people dedicated to do work of such kind.

16th January, 2006

I heard something on this day that made it a day to remember.

It was my graduation days. One day in hostel there was a much talked about exciting issue among us. And the subject was a beautiful fancy case – looking exactly likely a red rose – that was seen on the table of our superintendent. It was a big issue for students as we were in a missionary institution and a rose-like fancy gift on a monk’s desk was the least we ever expected. The case was, no doubt, a gift. And most certainly, it was not from a girl, because, he was a monk. In an hour, the news had spread like hot cake. Some boys started having fun with him about the gift; asking him again and again of the name of the girl who had given it to him. And he kept smiling at our childishness. But there are always some people who take things beyond limits. When he was not in his room, someone had gone in, played fool with the rose, and broke it. We came to know this when he said this in the prayer hall. But what he said after that is something which I would never forget.

After the prayer was over, in his usual low voice he advised us not to go in his room in his absence and touch anything we liked. “There are certain things that you boys must learn,” he said. “One should never go in someone’s room in his absence. I have to tell you something which I had never wanted to tell. But I think I have to, in order to stop you from committing the same blunder again.

“Have all of you read the short story ‘kabuliwallah’ written by Tagore? There is a small girl in the story. Her name is Mini. Isn’t it?

“My brother has a daughter, whose name too is Mini. The day I left home to become a Monk, it was her birthday. I remember her to be a very small girl then. I can still remember her so clearly. She was such a cute, little girl. But I had to go that day. I was determined to be a monk. Many years have passed, about nine years. But I still remember that beautiful day. I do not know how she looks now, how tall she has grown up to, and how well she is. She is surely a big girl by now. It had been a long time. But every year, I make it a point to send her a letter on her birthday. It had been years since I saw her. But I still send her a letter every year, wishing her a happy birthday. And sometimes, she too sends me a letter. This time my brother came to meet me. And he gave me a gift sent by her. She had sent me that rose case. And someone among you had broken it.”

These words had rendered the entire prayer hall silent, and had sent a powerful current of pain running down our hearts.

He seemed to be hardly moved to emotion, though he was surely, as most humans are, deeply moved in his heart. And then he said, “The rose is immaterial. What I wanted to say was that you should not touch anything in my room without my permission. Now you may all disperse. Go and study.”

I do not know whether he had a tear drop or two falling from his eyes or not when he had found the rose-like case to be broken. Had I been in his place, I would probably had pain spikes in my heart. We learnt an important lesson that day. We realized the value of privacy.

Astronomy For Children

During my schooldays I had many dreams, much more wishes, and much colourful dreams. A child’s mind is always busy doing something or the other that might seem foolish and useless to the grown-ups. But the sweetness of childhood is so true to the heart of the child that it keeps him closer to heaven. The other day I was cleaning my library when I came across a four page manuscript. When I saw it, I smiled, kept down the duster, and sat down on the sofa to read it. The manuscript bore the title, foreword, contents, and the first page of the first chapter of a book that I had started writing in my childhood. It was called – “Astronomy for Children: the Birthday and Life of the Universe”. I had never completed the book. I do not remember why I had stopped writing after I had written the first page. But the little that exists has touched my heart. It even wonders me how I thought that I might be publishing it when I would become a man and accordingly I wrote the foreword at that time making it sound like a grown-up man. Here it goes:

...........

Astronomy for Children: The Birthday and Life of the Universe

By Subhanjan Sengupta

....

Foreword:

My Dear Children,

When I started writing this book, I remember, I was fifteen. The year I wrote this was a trammelled year for me. My results at class tests were pathetic and there were grown-ups all around staring at me with their blinding grim eyes. But that did not stop me from writing for you. And that’s because I had always felt a profound love for you.

When I first sat down to write this book, I was about to become a teenager. In a way, I was a child myself. But I had love for children younger to me. And I always felt I had to write something for you; something that would be sweet, yet scientific to you. And thus my pen got busy to write this book. Moreover, I could have never written this if I had been a grown-up. Most lose their sense of beauty and sense of purpose when they become grown-ups.

I dedicate this book to all of you who read it. Young boys and girls fall in love with each other. And I wish this book makes you fall in love with stars.

With Love,

Subhanjan Sengupta

 .....

The Universe speaks:

"Hello children, I am your Universe. Today I am going to tell you my story. Here is my story in the following chapters:

Chapter 1 -          'My Birthday'

Chapter 2 -          'I Am a Family'

Chapter 3 -          'My Lifestyle'

Chapter 4 -          'The Solar Family'

Chapter 5 -          'Your Earth and Your Moon'

Chapter 6 -          'Man’s Quest for Cosmic Knowledge'

Chapter 7 -          'Probes and Satellites'

Chapter 8 -          'The End' "

......

 

Chapter 1

“Hello Children.

I am your universe.

I was born in one magic moment ten to twenty thousand million years ago. And believe me; no one knows what was there before my birth. May be nothing at all; no time, no space. My birth was the very first second created. And that second was created because I was born. This seems weird. Isn’t it? Well listen to this:

I was born. And billions of years after that on my lap was born your mom and dad, and then you. For all of us, our birthdays have a similarity. And what is that similarity? That similarity is that we all have mothers. You have a mother. I had a mother too. Your mother is a sweet woman. My mother was something extremely hot and of an incredibly high density.

Now let us discuss what density is. When we say that something is dense, we mean that it is closely packed. For example, when we say that a crowd is dense, we mean that there are lots of people in the crowd and the people are very close to each other. It is this quality of being dense that is known as density. So when I say I was born from something of very high density, I mean that my birth was out of something that was made up of matter which was very closely packed."

 

...........

  

I do not remember what happened after this; why I had not written any further. I only wish I had completed the book. I wonder whether I have that mind and heart to try to go down deep inside my soul and explore the child inside me to start writing again. I wish I had even a little bit of the child-like-enthusiasm that Exupery had. 

The Fortunate and The Unfortunate

I took this image with my mobile camera in a local train. Since it was only a VGA camera of poor quality, I was not able to get good picture quality. But while taking the picture, the only thing that seemed important to me was the realisation that there are so many people in this world who lead lives that are hardly secure. When I see this picture, I realise how fortunate I am, and what responsibility I am supposed to keep in my heart and mind and contribute something to the fulfilment of that responsibility. When I see this image, I realise how blessed a childhood I had. And I can not help seeing two contradictory images in my mind: a rich man's rich child with rich toys and a poor man's poor child with a bleak world to look at. I hope you too feel the same.

Belief

"Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe." - Albert Einstein

These pictures are from my archive of many pictures that I had taken of the very same church that I had talked about in my previous post. I hope you would like them and feel good. 'Faith', I believe is an important thing that determines most of the things that happen to us. Our beliefs tell a lot about us. 

"This is what I believe:

That I am I.

That my soul is a dark forest.

That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.

That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.

That I must have the courage to let them come and go.

That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.

There is my creed."  - D. H. Lawrence

Prayer and Peace

This picture was shot on Christmas Day at a very famous church. I was captured by this mood. If you are a sensitive person, I believe you can link this picture in many ways to the previous picture. I would like to know from you how you link these two significant and thought-provoking moments from life.  

Unnoticed

I took this picture at night on the streets of Chennai. I was extremely hurt by this scene. I may be a novice in photography. But my request to the reader while looking at this image is not to look at it as a photograph, but as a question on our so-called 'developed' and 'modernised' society. While the busy traffic passes by with it's 'important' engagements, another face of India stays unnoticed and in need of help.

Ghajini: An Evaluation

Directed by A. R. Murugadoss and produced by Allu Aravind, Ghajini is one of the countable few contemporary movies of Bollywood that is worth seeing. Some might disagree with me, though none has been able to give me concrete reasons for disagreeing. But many do agree that it is neither a waste of money nor a waste of time. But I also do not deny that I might be talking through my hat if I say that it falls in the category of the best of the movies that the world has seen. Certainly it does not fall in the category of movies that are to be remembered, though Taree Zameen Per was. None the less, Ghajini does qualify as a very good movie.

For those who do not know the story, here is a synopsis of the story.

The protagonist of the movie is Mr. Sanjay Singhania, who is the chairman of a national mobile company. A very successful businessman as he is, he is a well-known personality. He falls in love with an upcoming model called Kalpana, whose role is played by bollywood débutant Asin Thottumkal. Kalpana is a young and vivacious girl who is a struggling model. By the peer misunderstanding and pressure of her boss in the advertising firm she works, she proclaims herself as the girlfriend of the successful entrepreneur and quickly climbs up the ladder and promotes her firm. Infuriated by this scandal Sanjay Singhania decided to settle matters with this girl called Kalpana whom he had never even seen. But the movie took a turn when on the way Sanjay sees a kind hearted girl on the road helping disabled children to cross the gate of a museum because at the gate there were grills laid on the ground and the crutches of the disabled children got stuck in the gaps. It was not long after that when Sanjay met Kalpana and realised that she was that very girl. Sanjay disguises himself as Sachin and relates to Kalpana. Slowly the relationship grows from friendship to love. Kalpana, not knowing that Sachin is Sanjay Singhania himself, falls in love with him.

But the movie takes a big turn in its story line when kind-hearted and morally conscious Kalpana becomes a target of the notorious business tycoon Ghajini and his henchmen after she foils their plot to sell girls into prostitution. Kalpana is brutally killed right in front of Sanjay and then Sanjay was hit hard in the head that subsequently caused him Anterograde Amnesia. After rehabilitation, he becomes obsessed with avenging the murder of his beloved and has tattoos spread all over the torso to remind him of his intensions.

One has to see the movie to get a good grasp of the story as it is very hard for me to portray the movie in the reader’s mind by words. There is a lot of detailing in the movie and one has to keep his eyes open to notice every minute detailing. And with this detailing is woven a chain of small events that make the complete structure.

As the movie deals with the psychological turmoil of the protagonist, a lot of care has been taken to give a vivid idea of the kind of life that Sanjay is living. As a result of memory loss after every fifteen minutes, he keeps an alarm clock with him that rings an alarm after every fifteen minutes. When the alarm rings, he realises that he has forgotten everything and brings out several photographs that he had taken of his doctor, his manager, his apartment, different streets, buses, auto rickshaws, and of people that he is supposed to remember. And by seeing those pictures he decides what he is supposed to do next. At the end of every fifteen minutes he forgets what his purpose is and his mind becomes blank like a white sheet of paper. He does not even know his name. Imagine a man living like this for years at a stretch. All because he was hit hard by an iron rod on the head and he does not even remember what happened to him, leave alone who did and why. His room is filled with exhaustive detailing – the kind that you do not see generally in ordinary movies. Sheets of road maps with photographs attached all over to remind him where to go, how to go, and the reason to go. The walls are cluttered with graffiti “Kill Him”. But he forgets every fifteen minutes whom to kill and why. He screams and cries out of terrible anxiety. He struggles all day. His tables are full of boxes with details written over them of what they contain. One has his wallet, one has his watch, one the photographs, so on and so forth. In the bathroom, it is written on a paper: Open your tee shirt. As he opens he sees the tattoos and is reminded that Kalpana was killed and that he is to take revenge. He grows mad at the sight of his torso and cries and struggles all day trying to remember what had happened and whom he is supposed to kill. The videography of the movie is of such excellence that I can guarantee that it is one of the best. The environment of his apartment and his anxiety has been blended so well that it seems that you are yourself there present in the room with him and witnessing the trauma. It pains the viewer to see the condition of the protagonist – a very important characteristic of a good movie. And along with such spectacular effect comes the brilliant acting of Amir Khan. I can claim that very few present actors of Bollywood come anywhere near to the talent of Amir Khan. There is no doubt in the fact that even King Khan does not come anywhere near to him. The expressions of Amir Khan, the portrayal of the character, and the exuding of anxiety of the character could not have been done better. I was simply amazed and emotionally charged in the scene where he was able to take his revenge finally on Ghajini. It was a very touching scene where he was engaged in a violent encounter with Ghajini. But while being violent he was crying pathetically and wiping his tears away from his face with blood stained hands. The agony that the character was going through hit the heart of the audience. One is left with several questions in one’s mind on what could have been going through the mind of the protagonist when he was taking the final revenge.

But my favourite character in the movie was that of Kalpana. She is the kind of character that brings colour to any story. Bright, vibrant, child-like enthusiasm - all blended into one simple soul. One is charmed by the kind-hearted and childish Kalpana. While she helps an blind old man cross a busy market, she narrates to him every interesting event taking place in the market: children singing, a woman beating up her husband with vegetables, the chiming of the temple bell, the radio screaming out Bollywood numbers at a shop, so on and so forth. One is simply charmed by such a beautiful character. The character makes us question on our own characters. It teaches us the necessity to be happy and lively no matter what happens and work for the good. The child-like enthusiasm teaches us how beautiful a human can be. The very framing of her sentences shows her as a very straight forward girl who is very concrete in her thoughts and exudes a lot of self-confidence. One is amused by how she is able to save several young girls from the hands of women traffickers on a Goa bound train. But as the rule of the world goes, the good never survives for long. The price of being a good man was crucifixion about two thousand years ago. And that has not changed much. Kalpana was brutally killed by Ghajini, who was the mastermind of the entire trafficking system. And at this point of the movie, the entire hall was spell bound and terribly anguished. The videography of the movie is such that it pains you down to the depth of your heart. A very important aspect of photography or videography is to show the ambience from the eyelevel of the subject. That might sound easy. But trust me it is a very difficult task to do. While Sanjay was lying on the floor weeping and his head bleeding, the movie showed our dear Kalpana being brutally murdered from the eyelevel of Sanjay. A scene like that was very hard to accept for a soft hearted person like me. Imagine a scene where a girl of a gentle and kind soul lying on a pool of blood on the floor, trembling with pain and extending her arms for help from her beloved who is himself lying half conscious and bleeding. And at that moment Ghajini comes and hits the head of the girl hard with a rod of iron in the way you hit a ball with your cricket bat. And imagine yourself seeing all these from the eyelevel of Sanjay who is lying on the floor half conscious and seeing his love murdered. In very few movies, I had been forced to close my eyes for a few seconds. This was one such. And I simply could not take it. But I can claim that the portrayal of this situation was far more than extraordinary and deserves wide applause. It was beyond words.

After seeing that one can realise the mental turmoil Sanjay had to undergo. Imagine yourself seeing your friend, or wife, or daughter being murdered like that. And you have faint glimpses of that memory and forget that in every fifteen minutes. And then you scream and cry like anything until by seeing every odd picture and graffiti all around your room you realise that someone was killed and that you have to kill the killer. Such psychoilogial turmoil is a very difficult subject for any work of art and calls for great talent and hard work. And I am happy to say that Ghajini is not merely successful in this, but has done very fine artistic work.

The most brilliant part of any work of fiction, I believe, is the catharsis. Catharsis is very important because it is terribly unfair to leave the audience or reader in extreme pain. A balance has to be struck between joy and pain and that is very much necessary as that not only proves the level of dexterity of the writer or the crew making the movie, but also comforts the reader and audience to a great extent. And the catharsis of Ghajini was one of the best I have ever experienced. The catharsis was at the end. The very mood of the movie changes after Sanjay had taken the revenge. He celebrates the birthday party of an orphan at an orphanage named after Kalpana. A medical student - who had helped him in taking his revenge and had helped his to recover his memories - gives him a gift. When he opens the gift, he is rendered spell bound by the sight of that slab of cement on which Kalpana had taken their footprints when they had entered their new apartment. While seeing the slab, Sanjay’s thoughts go back to Kalpana and he can almost see Kalpana sitting beside him and smiling at him. He holds her hand close to his heart and the camera shows a 360 degree close-up view of the two souls simply sitting there quietly and looking into each other’s eyes. The background instrumental music was one of the finest that I had ever heard as it blended so brilliantly with the mood that one hardly finds words to portray it. Your heart almost throbs at the same pace as that of Sanjay and you go through a spectacular catharsis. And I, being a soft hearted man by nature, was in desperate need for something like this after having witnessed a lot of turmoil in the movie.  

The movie is divided in two parts. One is the current state of things. The other is a flash back. I strongly believe that the two has been blended very well. Some might argue that the flash backs were too long and have ruined the movie. But I would beg to differ with them. To me, the flash backs seemed necessary for the movie and seemed to blend well with the present.

The tracks are good. But not all of them. The track ‘Ay Bacchu’ was of a different kind and was a funny one. It had a good blend of rock and carnival-type music. And choreography was also finely designed with no stupid and unnecessary elements. The track ‘Behka’ may seem a little bit stupid. But the choreography is very different and has some unique features like 90 degree rotation of the lens, duplicate characters, and vibrant colours. The most amazing videography can be observed in the track ‘Guzareesh’. The sand dunes and the placing of subjects on the dunes were simple and spectacular. It was a good artistic endeavour. Now if you come to the quality of music, it can not be better than that of the theme music – Kaise Mujhe. Of course there are far more laudable tracks in the world of music. But this one is not far behind. It captures the mood of the story very well. But I do not feel like listening to it as it reminds me of all the pain in the movie. But that does not mean it is not worthy to be heard. In fact it is worthy to be kept in your collection. The track ‘Lattoo’ was a worthless one. No doubt about that.

As far as the violence is concerned, the videography had been excellent. But there are certain things about Indian movies that just can not be digested. One of them is the weird super human type of fighting. Whether it is Sholay or Ghajini, it is very hard to digest how can a man still stand up and fight after a rod had passed through his tummy or diaphragm. Medical Science obeys no boundaries in Indian Movies. That is very much unacceptable.

Apart from this negative aspect of the scenes depicting violence, the over all appeal that the movie makes is laudable and makes it a ‘must-be-seen’ movie. I would give it a rating of seven out of ten.

Blood Is Shed Yet Again

Photo Courtesy: Fox News

Events of violence and terror are spread all across the world. Sporadic gunfire has taken place in the central Nigerian city of Jos, where at least two to three hundred people have died following two days of ethnic and religious clashes between Muslims and Christians. Accusations that an election had been rigged were the prime forces driving the violence. Inter-communal violence has claimed more than 1000 lives in Nigeria since 2001. 

There is no end to violence. With every passing day the world is taking a giant leap forward towards the Doomsday. What a world we are creating for our children! It pains me to even think of these things. I have always tried to look at the good things of the world, thereby telling myself that there is still a lot of LOVE and beauty that is keeping this planet alive. But now I have started to hate mankind. We really need another Great Flood and another Noah. 

Thoughts on The Terror Strikes In India

  Photo Courtesy: BBC

Mumbai has been attacked. More than a hundred people are dead. Some of them are even foreign nationals. In times while India is going through such turbulences, I can not help saying a few things on my blog though my blog primarily deals with my works on photography.

 The most important point that must be noted is that an overwhelming majority of Indians do not care the least to unite and fight terror. All that matters to almost every Indian is his own individual interests and it does not matter to him if someone is a victim until of course he is somehow closely related to him.  A Punjabi does not give a damn to what happens at Bengal. A Keralite would hardly care if thousands in Bihar lack any kind of access to education. And a Bengali is not concerned of anything in the world until it is directly related to himself or his family. It is THIS mean tribal sentiment that is the greatest weakness of our country. And being concerned does not just mean sitting on the sofa and abominating terrorists. Being concerned means building communities, groups, and finally expanding them to powerful institutions in order to fight terror.

And the worst effect of this is that our politicians are exact replicas of our mindsets. Every government that has come into power have failed to protect India from such attacks. Mumbai has been attacked three times in the past eight years. Why? Why are our intelligence and the government in power so weak? The present government has repeatedly failed to protect the public from such terror attacks. And that does not alter the fact that even if BJP comes to power it will not be able to stop this. All our politicians are concerned of is petty political issues that serve their own interests. Raj Thackeray can not bear the fact that Biharis are taking all the jobs in Mumbai and leaving the Mumbai’s youth unemployed. But where is his LOVE and CARE for Mumbai in THESE times?

Our country seriously lacks leaders. And until we – the common men – decide to take strong steps to modify the Indian mindset, nothing is going to happen. But we are so headstrong in our selfish motives that we would NOT change if a few of our cities are not eradicated from the face of this earth by a few nuclear explosions. When terror strikes take place we panic, curse terrorists, wow on the concept of anti-terrorism, and shout our lungs out by screaming “Vande Mataram”. But when every thing is over, we forget all that had happened, and go back to our daily self-centred activities. And look at the unity we have in cricket and Bollywood. Such disgusting sloth!

And the worst thing about India is that whatever happens, the blame is always on Pakistan. It is true that whatever attacks take place, all evidences lead to the involvement of Pakistan. Both the Indian Intelligence and American Intelligence said that Pakistan was behind the blast at the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Barack Obama has said that the Pakistan-Afghanistan belt is the seat of terrorism. Evidences suggest that these terrorists presently terrorising Mumbai had come into the city by a boat from a mother ship which is Pakistani. Their SIM Cards are Pakistani. They talk like Pakistanis. But all of these are allegations that have not been proved concretely. Just because there was a Saudi Arabian among the terrorists who crashed planes on the Twin Towers, it does not mean that Saudi Arabia was behind it. Just because there was a Jamaican behind the London blasts, it does not mean that Jamaica was behind it. So it is not right, as well as vey risky, to always pin point at Pakistan. Pakistan is itself suffering from much internal turbulence. In tribal regions of Pakistan, the disturbances have gone up to such a level that certain tribal regions have gone out of the control of the Pakistani government. And it is feared that it is in those regions that terrorists are breeding. Now that does not mean that the Pakistani government is to be blamed for it. What is essential right now is that India and Pakistan has to STOP behaving like kids and focus on mutual cooperation for resolving these things. But every time there is an attack, the Indian government points its fingers at Pakistan. But then they step back for God-knows-what political reasons. This is NOT going to help.   

Another important thing that we and our government MUST understand is that it is not impossible for a cost guard to have been bribed by the terrorists for getting an easy entry inside Bombay. In a state of such an emergency we suddenly realise the importance of the profession of a fire fighter, of a policeman, and of a coast guard. And these are some of the lowest paid professions of this country. So why will not a poor Coast Guard take bribe of a few lakh Rupees? Will we gain anything by blaming him and sending him to the prison? It is time to take things seriously until we are able to hunt down the dens of these terrorists and eradicate them. If things go back to normal even after this incident at Mumbai is over, I fear nothing is going to happen and things will go out of control. By that time, it will be too late. Thousands will die every year and millions will be threatened. 

P.S - In order to have a good understanding of the present situations, do visit the following links:

1.  Suvro Sir's comment at Tanmoyda's blog, the link of which can be found at the list of my favourite blogs.
2. Link to an analysis on Indo-Pak relationship of Reuters:                                                               http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AQ65J20081127
   
3. Another analysis of Reuters on the vulnerability of Mumbai:                                                       http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AQ52120081127
4. Who could be behind the attacks?                                                                                                      http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE4AQ14Z20081127
5. BBC's analysis: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7752173.stm    
6. Listen to this oral description of one of the hostages:              http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7753000/7753957.stm