The day after..

It is hard to cope up with what just happened and what is still happening in Mumbai.
Sympathy, Anger, Restlessness, Willingness to help, etc. – all confound the holiday shrouded mind.

I am using this post as an incoherent blurt…I am not an expert in International affairs. But as a responsible citizen of India and of a peace loving world, I have the right to ask these questions.

* How about the Indian government acting right now? While the rescue and recovery operations are underway, let us use our International goodwill and apply as much pressure we can on ISI and ask them to better point us in the direction of these hideouts in Pakistan? I am pretty positive if ISI works with us (of course they won’t), we can probably uncover 75% of potential future threats to India..

* How about a crackdown on all Indian mosques beginning today? No excuses. I respect my Muslim friends’ right to worship – But these are not normal times..So if you are a moderate muslim, thank you for being so – but it is not enough that you condemn these cowardly acts – you have to work with the government…Right now. Yes. Right now.
You can still go to mosques. But you will have military presence..Sorry – that’s the only way the Indian government can snub Madarasas.

* How about getting rid of the myth that India is a secular country and all political parties will have to do whatever appeasement work they have to do to get their vote banks? Do what is right for India.

36 hours. Nariman House is still under siege. Taj and Oberoi – Conditions still unclear.

Ivory and Rahul Raj

News:

The first officially sanctioned sale of ivory in southern Africa for almost a decade opened on Tuesday.
Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe will auction more than 100 tonnes of ivory from stockpiles to buyers from China and Japan.
The money raised will go into elephant conservation projects.

Reaction:

I am totally against it even if statistics showed that after the last 1999 legal sale of ivory, illegal poaching came down..Yes. I am an environmentalist and I believe in stricter sanctions to be imposed on countries like China to have better controls.

News:

Mumbai Police on Monday shot down a gun-toting youth from Bihar in a city bus after he fired indiscriminately and threatened to kill MNS chief Raj Thackeray, adding a new dimension to the violent campaign against migrant workers in Maharashtra. Additional Police Commissioner Sadanand Date said the youth was carrying an illegal weapon and had opened indiscriminate firing in a public place, and that he was killed in a police operation.

Reaction:

More follow up on this incident tells me that Raj Thackeray and his fanatical mob have created so much panic in the Maharashtrian minds that the Police would have killed Rahu Raj even if he had carried a Diwali dummy pistol with him. And this in a city, which will let real terrorists bomb their way to glory killing innocent citizens!
And I go back to my earlier outburst – This needs to be stopped right now – else the state of Maharashtra will become isolated..and terrorized..

7 Years

Seven years ago…
A few minutes from now…I would learn about the moment that would change the general outlook of every single citizen of this world, on the times we are living in. In my lifetime this far, it was the single most devastating event that shook off the world and made a lot of us – moderates and extremists alike, think “why..and why”!

At that moment though, seven years ago when I learned about a Plane hitting WTC, like many of us, I had no idea about the far reaching impact of that cowardly act. It was pandemonium at my work place that chilly September morning and everyone was trying to get hold of their sources to get more information. The entire morning was sombre, needless to say. The rest of the week at work was even more confusing for all of us who were from out of town and had to find ways to get home..But we knew that confusion and the pain of not getting home on time was nothing in comparison to the pain that was inflicted on those family members, of those who just wouldn’t get home for ever.

Today is a chilling reminder of that day and the cloud that cowardly act has covered us with. The memorial services are just the bare minimum human gestures that we can offer. But does it mean anything to the victims’ families? And to think, that someone out there could try to get some political wind out of it, is repugnant.

For now though, my heart goes out to those who never would make it home and their families!

Shameful shooting

There probably is no safe place – If a small university town, away from all the real-world craziness & devoid of urbane pollution, cannot guarantee a psychotic killer with free access to guns in a country that prides on its free-gun-values, from going on a shooting rampage right in the middle of a class room, where professors and students die – all alike, dropping their heavy, lifeless bodies, with no time to think about families & loved ones before dying, then there really is none — no safe place, for ordinary people who want to live.

Time for a reality check (again) on the gun-control issue perhaps? Well..I am sure the Charlton Heston likes will be the first ones to jump on top of times like these to build a self-defending wall around their industry. And their powerful lobbying will continue to pound the Washington interests and before you & I can blink, the issue will get another twist and soon, it will be yet another forgotten tragedy like Columbine.

The same mentally deranged Asian male could have gone berserk on the same day for the same reason — no gun control could have prevented that — but..but..but…if buying a 9mm pistol was not as easy as buying a pack of gum for this student, then….in my simple mind, 32 more learned men could still be walking tall in the Blacksburg campus and their families could still be getting ready for their Summer breaks .

Shame on us. Shame on us for letting these familes suffer.