Skip to main content

Prime Time Terror

After 26/11, I received number of forwards into my mailbox, proclaiming 'enough is enough', 6 steps or 21 steps the Govt. should take to combat terror, stories of martyrs of Mission Tornado, gory images of CST shootout, interviews of film stars and celebrities and every conceivable gossip possible (I am awaiting a forward on Kasab's love interest). Everyone has a good topic discuss now, at bus stops, coffee shops, at the dinner table and may be even daaru.
Media has given this incident prime coverage. Relatives of victims have spoken on television before the first tear rolled out of their eyes. New channels especially the Sabse Tej ones have even broadcast the journey of a bullet from a terrorist's gun to a soldiers chest. And we all have watched it in amusement on TV. We all have been scared. We all have been stirred. We all have been shaken.
Thousands of people gathered at the Gateway of India to protest the inefficiency of the Government. They had catchy slogans written on their T-shirts and on placards. The crowd enthusiastically clicked pictures, shouted slogans and gave media bytes. All so much filmy, so much Rang de Basanti. Now, what next?
Change in leadership at the state level, that too just one state. Will we wait for attacks on other states to bring about a change there? Are we going to be reactive only? Scared, stirred and shaen, but has the incident really woken us up? Or do we still thin that candle light and peace marches are going to solve the problem. Have the parents of Indian youth woken up enough to support their child's entry into politics? Have the Indian wives woken up enough to let their husband take up a lesser paying job, give up the luxuries of a sedan and that lucrative onsite trip just because their motherland needs them more? And above all have WE, the responsible citizens of free India, understood where every small penny spent on bribe, LPG cylinders in black market, pirated music/movies, cash payment of rent and property purchase is taking our country? Are we awake to the fact that black money from this market funds terror? Are we ready to sacrifice petty individual gains for the larger good? Stop blaming the politicians for their corrupt practices. They are just worthy representatives of who we are.

Comments

Kiran said…
I could not agree more .. and I loved the conlcuding 2 sentences of this post!

Popular posts from this blog

The oscar for dilemmas

As I was travelling from Goa to Pune in a Bus, I overheard some conversation and could see a lot of dilemma on the face of a fellow passenger. As the story evolved, I could connect with him. Thus it went: They were a couple, he was with his fiance/wife/girlfriend (a non-ma/behen relationship). There was another girl (pretty) who wanted to a lady's seat. She could get it only if this gentleman would give up the company of his travel mate as there were no other female passengers on the bus. I have been through similar situation and have said no and felt guilty about it till the society at large did something equally unjust to me. But this incident in the bus the other day, sparked off some more such dilemmas that I have come across quite often. I thought of having a golden globe of dilemmas; put them on the blog and see which is the most common dilemma. First being the one above, the second dilemma that comes to my mind is of cheating in exams. No No. Me cheating is taboo enough! It ...

The business of all that is complex

Very recently I have been following Jason Fried's posts on 37signals.com. I am impressed by his minimalist thoughts and the whole idea of customers 'growing out of' and 'growing into' your product. Per Jason, there are just a certain simple features that customers really want and a product company should strive to be the best at those features. But beyond these features, your customers will always have some desires and will keep asking for more features. One should learn to say no to such demands and crowd the Product with features that only a few of your customers will actually use. These frills not only hamper the performance of the product technically, but also make the Product manufacturer waste a lot of effort in the form of product support and other allied activities. This seems to have been working for folks at 37signals.com and many more such companies (SFDC, Flip Video recorders etc.) I then started thinking of this philosophy in the context of Indian IT co...

RSS - an answer to the caste discrimination

One of my old post on Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh drew a comment today. It posed a few question about the stand RSS takes on the issues of caste system in our contry. The reader also asked if RSS could be a possible solution. And this, my dear readers in the fuel for this post. Let me put forth some facts about the organisation called RSS right at the beginning. RSS is a social organisation. There is no formal registration and participation is completely voluntary. It is not a political, religious or profit making orgnisation. There are no posts, there are only responsibilities (in fact that what they are called). These facts make it clear that this is a place where entry and exit is pretty easy. There are no costs involved with either. Which means there is no-one who can tell you that he will get you registered with the RSS and do you a favour. RSS is for everyone. In my opinion it is a perfect place where caste ism cannot exist. There are no reservations for a certain community. T...