Mumbai blasts – heroes and zeroes

More than 48 hours later, Operation Tornado was almost done.

Have you been watching the news?

Let me give you the zeroes first...

Amitabh Bachchan has written something careless in his blog:

“I am ashamed to say this. As the events of the terror attack unfolded in front of me I did something for the first time and one that I had hoped never ever to be in a situation to do. I pulled out my licensed .32 revolver, loaded it and put it under my pillow.”

This, my friends, is being flaunted as the insecurity of the city-dweller. How many bodyguards does he have? What about his security? This is a wrong message being sent out to many people, including his poor fans.

How many people have licensed weapons? Isn’t he indirectly suggesting that we need to freely have access to weapons? The police force does. The army does. The commandoes do. Yet it took them two days to get rid of the terrorists, resulting in so many deaths.

His statement is most irresponsible. I am sure there are other ways for him to express how disturbed he is.


A stupid SMS message is doing the rounds:

“Where is Raj Thackeray and his ‘brave’ Sena? Tell him that 200 NSG Commandos from Delhi (South, west, east and North Indians!) have been sent to Mumbai to fight terrorists so that he can sleep peacefully. Plz forward this so that it reaches the coward bully!”

Again, we are told this shows the anger of the Mumbaikar. Please understand this. The fact that we mention where the commandos come from means we are underlining this fact ourselves.

There is no need to politicise this issue at all. If people have the courage, they should have sent out these SMS messages when his party was on a rampage and called him a terrorist.

Will we put in an appeal that next time this happens we will call in the commandoes?


Why did Narendra Modi come to Mumbai?

He was not needed. He is another state’s chief minister. By announcing a Rs 1 crore compensation to the kin of the victims he is only playing electoral politics. Then he visited Hemant Karkare’s widow. This same man, and the same BJP, had been critical of the ATS chief when he was investigating the Malegaon blasts.

I can only hope that his widow is compensated financially by the Government of India and gets due respect. The best way to preserve his memory is to continue with his work and persist with it. Let not this terror attack stop another investigation.


Why has Manmohan Singh asked the ISI chief to come to India?

Is he going to admit that Pakistan is involved, if as they say the terrorists are from Pakistan?

And what is this clubby talk about Indo-Pak relations getting mucked up? When were they good?

I do not wish to rush in with any suggestions or ideas, but one thing has to be done by both countries. Leave Kashmir alone.


Flippant soundbytes

Everyone, including media persons crouching on the ground, have been pointing at the Taj Mahal Hotel and calling it a landmark, in fact many more wonderful things. Social butterflies are being interviewed and they are weeping in their scented tissues, with full make up on, about how they were almost there, or near that hotel; some have got nostalgic memories about how they saved money as kids to eat at the Taj.

They are kosher. Not one word against this superficiality. When I did not have enough money to spend, I did not even aspire for that.

Society biggies are talking about having a citizens’ movement to curb terrorism.

Really? This is an insult to all those who risked their lives. Dealing with terrorism is not about holding hands and forming a human chain and issuing sweet-sounding statements.

Only because five-stars were targeted does not mean only the voices of the rich and famous should be heard.

Heroes...

It was not the rich and famous who were clamouring to shake hands with the NSG commandos. It was the common people from the streets. They cheered them as the operation was through.

The commandos are the brave souls.

I must mention the media persons who spent hours and hours under restricted circumstances to cover the happenings. I did not agree with some of the reportage, but they did their jobs and some rather well and with responsibility.

Mumbai’s ordinary people

For not analysing. For going back to work. There is utterly misleading talk about how for the first time this city is not back on its feet. Nonsense. Not applicable to milkmen, vegetable vendors, domestic helpers…

Mumbai, as I said that day, will survive.

Finally…

Does anyone know what the terrorists are really demanding?