Week after the blasts, after hundreds of coverage and analysis shows, thousands of blogs I could not help but agree with all of those. Almost everyone/everything had a point of view towards the blasts. Indeed, a time of grief and mourning …
Few are disappointed they have lost their acquaintances / family friends
Some are shattered by dilapidated Taj structure
Some want Manmohan Singh to step down at any cost
Few went to silly extents of challenging Raj Thackeray to fight the terrorists with a gun in his hand
All colors of a single protest, just that personal concerns tend to overshadow our protests, regularly !
I …..
I don’t belong any one of the above categories
I am not Hindu / Muslim / Jew / Christian
I am not a regular at Taj / Oberoi
I do not travel by local trains
I stay in Pune and visit Mumbai once every around two months
I have been to the Gateway of India 3-4 times in my life
None of my friends/relatives staying suffered directly from these blasts
Still an attack on Mumbai is an attack on my home, in all the ways ….
Yet, I can’t help but confess that I was devastated mentally on 11/26, I feel numb and helpless just like many around me do
I don’t have a good leader around, someone who can protect me from terror attacks …. The politicians are too busy carving out election agendas out of terror attacks
I don’t have a coordinated security / well-equipped police to protect me …. they are themselves helpless
I don’t have a mature media to speak out through ….. they’re busy trying strategies for better TRPs or revealing out Indian forces’ ‘internal’ plots in open
And then, I don’t have sensible people around me ….. they are too busy with their work and personal growths or too busy to undergo security checks or to caste their votes or raise voices against terror / government
I felt embarrassing when my nation’s stock market was closed for an entire day
I felt insulted we had to lose billion of rupees and dollars due to attack on our own country
I felt dejected when best of Indian security forces could not fight 10 odd militants
It was personal when people (oops, another mistake …. They’re not people, they’re politicians) like Narendra Modi, K Achutanandan, R R Patil, Abbas Naqvi passed on their utterly silly comments
Well, I am not going to take things lying down ….. happily, this time, its not ‘I’ but ‘We’ …. There’s an awakening around ….. Congrats Mumbai !
We won’t let even outside areas for planning and commissioning terror on our soil, beware Pakistan
We won’t let anyone insult our martyrs
We will put all the make-up, lip-sticks and come out to protest, lets see who stops us
It will be OUR decision, if at all, not to vote for existing government, others need not advise us
If someone thinks these incidents are not very big, we’ll show them what price they have to pay for it
We are not going to be soft targets anymore and will start changing from ourselves, undergoing security checks and we’ll be casting our votes regularly
We will start practicing caution in crowded as well as lonely surroundings
We will be careful towards abandoned goods around us
We’ll carry our identity cards everywhere we go and fully cooperate in facilitating the security process
Keep looking on, we are moving forward !
Mumbai is ready to fight
Maharashtra is ready to fight
India is ready to fight
When I visit Mumbai next (very soon at that) I wanna go and visit Taj …. Oops sorry, I wanna visit ‘The Taj’, I wanna board train from CST next time …. I will walk Colaba streets for sure …. Let’s see who can stop me