Bits and Pieces - Aftermath of Mumbai Mayhem

I was glued to the TV watching the nail-biting fifth one-dayer between India and England. Flipping the channels was strictly not allowed. The match ended with India's win in the match as well as 5-0 lead in the seven-match series. One step ahead towards a whitewash. After the win, I changed the channel, just to see the news (of over-excitement of Indian news channels) of India's win.

Forget the good news, there was the news of firing at four places in Mumbai. The reporters, initially, tagged it as a gangwar. But i sensed something much much more fishy. A gangwar can not take place at so many places at the same time. Within minutes, the news of a blast at Vile Parle flashed on the screen, affirming my belief of a terror attack.

At that time, the victory in the cricket match looked so very irrelevant. Cricket is not larger than life, not even in India, where it is said to be a religion. IRONICAL !

I didn't even watch the presentation ceremony. All I was doing was flipping between the news channels.

The terrorists had already started firings at the Taj, the Oberoi-Trident, CST, Cama Hospital, Leopold Café.... I couldn't sleep that night, even though I knew that allmy near and dear ones were safe.

Next day, the picture became clearer. Those guys had taken a lot of people as hostages, including foreigners, in the Taj, the Oberoi-Trident and Nariman House. I thought these guys had some demands to make. The news channels were doing LIVE coverage of the rescue operations, something which could've posed a bigger threat since the terrorists might have been watching every move of the security personnel LIVE on the TV.

Bullets. Fire. Grenades. Hostages.

I kept watching silently.

I had seen our Home Minister changing clothes after the blasts in Delhi. And that night I saw him informing the whole world on TV that NSG men are leaving to take on the terrorists. He gave the details. Number of NSG men, what time they would leave and what time they would start the operations.

Thank you Mr Minister. The terrorists were watching you on the TV.

And I was watching it all silently.

That night I also wondered where was Raj Thackeray and his 'brave' men who wanted to save their beloved Mumbai from North Indians. Why was he seen nowhere to save the lives of Mumbaikars? And did he ask the NSG commandoes whether they are from north or south? Or do they speak Marathi? Since the NSG commandos arrived 9 hours later, Raj and his men should have been sent to 'save their Mumbai' in the interim.

Mumbai for Marathis! NO!!! Mumbai belongs to all of us. Attack on Mumbai is attack on India. And that night all the Indians were worried and glued to TV and praying for the safety of hostages. They were not praying for Mumbaikars or Marathis or South Indians or North Indians. They were praying for all the INDIANS.

Even I prayed. I prayed for the well being of those inside, except the terrorists of course.

That night I also read Amitabh Bachhan's blog. Day 218. And I was stuck at the last sentence of the blog.

"Before retiring for the night, I pulled out my licensed .32 revolver,
loaded it and put it under my pillow. For a very disturbed sleep."

Disturbing times indeed.

I am still silent. But I know its time to speak up. Speak up and ask our damn good-for-nothing politicians and administrators how long they are going to cage us in fear and insecurity?Speak up and ask why don't we have a leader who can come out and say YES WE CAN !

We were tired of waking up each morning to the news of terror attack in some or the other part of the country, at least I was. I needed some result. Some damn result !

The Oberoi-Trident was cleared by evening and Nariman House by night. But the terrorists were still playing hide-and-seek with the security forces at the Taj. The Taj was cleared by next morning, thus ending the biggest terror attack on India in 59 hours. By late evening, it was found out that they were just 10 terrorists who carried out the inhuman act.

This was an example what a few 20-somethings can do. These 10 guys halted the world's largest democracy, the world's future superpower.

All of us are tired. Tired of facing terror attacks. Tired of the reports of the insensitive media. Tired of trusting people. Tired of being helpless. As a friend put it,

Why we, the youth of India, can't do a fucking thing to change the
fucking system at the moment?

I still sometimes wonder that why do Indians fight with other Indians in the name of caste, language, race, etc instead of fighting the motherfucker enemies of the country.

The aftermath of terror attack was something even more painful than the attack itself. With the media trying to reach everywhere, even at the cremation grounds and at houses of the martyrs, its much much more painful to see someone's funeral LIVE on the bloody idiot-box, and its even more painful to see the state of the kins of the deceased. The media fraternity (as they call themselves) must STOP doing such a crap. Just for the sake of your viewership, you guys are making commercial use of something like DEATH.


Another aftermath took in the political circles with Shivraj Patil (coincidentally from Maharashtra) vacating the post of Home Minister. He resigned taking the moral responsibility of the attacks. P Chidambaram is given the Home portfolio while the Finance portfolio (earlier held by P Chidambaram) will now be held by the PM himself.


Well much said about the good-for-nothing politicians and of course the insensitive media. Its time to end this post. But before ending, I would like to mention a message, which reads like this :

Forgiving the terrorists is left to God. But fixing their
appointment with God is our responsibility.

- INDIAN ARMY