I attended the march at the Gateway of India today, and it was amazing. The number of people that turned out was overwhelming. The lines we huge but the people polite.
As I stood in line inching forward eagerly towards the taj, people shouted slogans like "Bharat maata ki jai" and "Pakistan ki maa ka ***". While some contreversial banners urging india to attack pakistan we unfurled, some banners showed messages of peace and solidarity. Differing opinions of people did culminate into one central idea though, we love mumbai, we love India, and we have had enough.
As I reached the Taj, which stood as majestic as it did the last time I saw it (clearly they had cleaned up) I felt a sense of pride, of belonging, and a little of the feeling I was being pushed and shoved. "Jaana Gana mana" was in the air and I stood in attention, while I just stood there looking, speechless at the beauty of Taj at night.
Its fantastic to see how the will of the people triumphs, that democracy actually fulfills its objective. Remarkably, young India showed its face as a disillusioned group that is in the know, and knows what it wants from government. It turned a lot of heads. News media from around the world covered the story, as a strong political message. Congress calls for Vilasrao deshmukh to resign. The wheels are turning, hopefully we have a leadership now that protects us against these terrorists. Maybe an approach like the USA might not be appropriate in combating terror, but some approach is needed. We cant approach each situation in a "lets touch the fire and learn from getting burnt" way. We need to have a comprehensive internal security policy, a sound financial policy and never forget that soverignity is paramount , we can never lose that.
Long live democracy. Its the lesser of all evils.
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16 comments:
the worst thing till now has been the media coverage.. its so bad that when u open the tv, u start wondering where the country is going.. every news channel has started off an initiative of its own.. i mean, if u were really bothered about the country, i suppose a unified campaign wud hv been better.. n instead of dat, wat we have is ndtv starting its "enough is enough" campaign, n headlines today taking it a step further with its "fight against terror" campaign, which ironically includes people taking a dumb pledge befitting an 8th grader.. people, saying that "india is my country and all indians are my brothers and sisters" is not going to make a huge differnce to the terrorists, is it??
yep n add to dat the same ol' cries of the politicians n media..the feeling of being cheated is hard 2 digest...as the day dawns people seem to realise that the political will to take on terrorism is absent..no politician seems to care for the real issues...the fake calls for a FIA is as we all know a knee-jerk reaction jus 2 pacify the public..public memory being wat it is..the politician knows full well that if he manages to push the issue for a few more days people will get on with their lives accepting the fact that indian establishment will do sumth abt dis...but as we fear it seems more of a farce on the linesof the 2k1 military build-up alongthe border(minus the military...
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yeah i agree with both i mean news channels are making a fortune out of it seems they struck gold .... yesterday they showed some recorded videos fo the terrorists over and over again,, it was so unnerving..... and the so called elected netas are on playing a blame game..... wid the media formign its own opinions, wid the netas wid dere own views i dont think the public is getting the real depth of the situation hence a biased opnion when will dis change.......... no good is gonna come out of it just by shouting aloudn that we r being trickd or cheated ....and definitely the stuednts pledge "all indians.. " isnt going to help....
Gaurav Ray invites you to attend the event
"In Honor of the Bombaby Blasts 11/26: Wear a White Shirt on Monday"
X joined the group Black Ribbon for Mumbai
(this group asks you to change your profile picture to a black ribbon….themed on the aids/breast cancer awareness ribbons...but black in colour)
We, Indians..are a bunch of over-dramatic people...having been served movies like Rang de Basanti and The Legend of Bhagat Singh. Something happens, we are quick to make groups, events, make promises, make statements...how many of us actually do something to change things...??
About the events and groups i began the note with...
How many of you noticed that the event I invited you for spelt "Bombay" wrong?
The event was for the city being besieged by terrorists and the dude who set the event up can’t spell the name of the damn city right!
Also, How are you going to show your solidarity for the people who died in Mumbai and their grieving relatives by wearing a white shirt??
Light candles??
Are you freaking serious?
How is lighting candles gonna help? What are you trying to prove?
That you care? Atrocities are happening somewhere or the other at every given moment..
Do we light candles every moment then??
Do we wear the white shirts every day then??
A few months down the line, no one will even care anymore...till another similar incident….we will make more groups...we will attend more events...we will light candles, matches and campfires and we will wear white shirts…black trousers and pink underwear...and then ......we forget what happened..Yet again!
The end note should hit home for the desi's
jab kadr nahin toh kadrdaan honae ka dikhaava mat karo…..
iss sastae ochchaepan kae baad hum logon mae...aur neta-on mae kya pharak reh jaata hai?
I will do what I can for my country...But my methods will be markedly different from lighting candles and wearing white on a particular day :)
@Gaurav:
The event should be taken for what it was, a massive motion of solidarity by the people of mumbai, for India a movement to signal to the politicians that enough is enough.
You seem to suggest it was a exercise in futility, it's self-defeatist attitudes like that, that get us into jams in the first place, a stagnant mindset which produces nothing except hot air. Good to know the "aaa.. kaun karega attitude" of indians spans even international borders.
Its people who demean such events that are trying to drive it into oblivion, as for your "different methods" i have nothing more to say more than youve already blown.
Why do we have a parade on independence day. Thats just to celebrate the one day vacation right. Why do we grace the occasion of gandhi jayanti which such solemnity. Arent they similar futile exercises added to the list of childrens day, mothers day, fathers day, aunty day, uncle day, blah blah... the list goes on.
The only way a person can truly change the country, your "markedly different methods" as you pointed out, is by running for office, become a politician, and try to affect change from the inside. And i dont think that anyone around here has the balls to do that.
So take the thing at face value, an attempt, albeit a disorganized one, to bring change. And what dyo know it succeded. I cant fathom how (for those oblivious to sarcasm, that was it).
i hate people who say terrorists have no religion.. i typed longer comments and both the times they turned out waay more separatist.. so.
i hate a lot of things about this attack n all.. but really its a maha very good conversation starter.. :D
we are not very concerned about lives of fellow humans.. who even bothered about the victoria terminus and about the people who died in there.. 58.. as in everywhere you look all you see is taj, a little of nariman house, some jews and very very little os VT(mostly that qasab's photo only :S).. evryones all cracnky about taj cos important people died, who cares if a coupla electricians or vegetable vendors died in VT.. its all just waaay too phony.. people may just give some money to some trust or summin.. but no one is going to try n change some rule to protect people's lives.. that takes more time n effort.. seriously.
26/11 will be just another date now.. when people will remember it as the day Mumbai came in to the league of great cities like Bali, Landon,Madrid, Cairo et all.
for how little its affects most people's lives waay too much fuss is being made.
i do agree, when we talk about the attacks we dont talk about CST at all.
There is still complacency among the police. Apart from mall areas they have those metal detectors at the stations but they go beeping away to glory with noone the wiser.
There is to be said something about indian mentality....
pain wanes exponentially for us, grief is so constant, so commonplace, that such incidents become ephemeral.
A lot of people are there for timepass, college kids mainly. What are candles going to do?
Its interesting to see how long itll last.
ya im already getting bored :S
saw taj today..
leavin besides all d political turmoil and d media hype somethings really surprised me.
first of all d bullet proof jackets dat d police were wearing were not up 2 d mark.dey were not made for ak47 or other higher weapons.so our police were sitting ducks for d terrorists.
secondly it was informed 2 d concerned officials by american intelligence dat there might be a terror attack on india thru sea.evey1 lend a deaf ear 2 d warnings and result is not hidden.
so ind end it is r callousness only dat makes us pay. d Indian govt.shud learn something from it at d least.
@ samay
point one. even the american cops dont have bullet proof vests that provide cover from ak 47.. its waay to expensive to be spent on all cops to save 5 cops in 50 years.
point two. there is intelligence everyday that there are going to be terror attacks.. some terror attacks are foiled some are not.. some are ignored some are not..
point three.. chillax.. there isnt much to learn.. we are doing fine :)
lol
@raghu
well as we r doin fine we r havin these terrorists attack frequently.
it seems 2 be d order of d day.
its no time to chill n no time for knee jerk reactions also.
n just comparin wid america wouldn't solve d problem.cause life of 5 brave police officers or even 1 is precious n irreplaceble.
its the irony of modern india dat politicians divide us by words..n terror strikes unites us...
wid the minority-minister mr.antulay makin weird comments abt Atscheif mr.karkare n oders bein misguided.dis is utter rubbish n a bein a responsible minister of stateaffairs u shuldnt make such comments.
D scene in parliament is even worse...
evryparty is cryin foul of eachoder,which doesnt help.
Despite of NIA bein setup,n laws bein passed..i think its not goin to help.the govt. must upgrade d police first.the intelligence agencies r doin a fine job..but d minutest of carefreeness might cause a havoc,which is evident frm dis situation...
its the irony of modern india dat politicians divide us by words..n terror strikes unites us...
wid the minority-minister mr.antulay makin weird comments abt Atscheif mr.karkare n oders bein misguided.dis is utter rubbish n a bein a responsible minister of stateaffairs u shuldnt make such comments.
D scene in parliament is even worse...
evryparty is cryin foul of eachoder,which doesnt help.
Despite of NIA bein setup,n laws bein passed..i think its not goin to help.the govt. must upgrade d police first.the intelligence agencies r doin a fine job..but d minutest of carefreeness might cause a havoc,which is evident frm dis situation...
@ samay
yes sir every life is very important. lets all make a bitter world :P and save all lives :P
hahah
(its not a typo) hehe
Why is it that we have endless discussion on all this everywhere but no one is willing it to translate it into actions?All these campaigns that we watch on tv are absolutely not going to make any difference.WE have to take the initiative n make sure dat we dont have criminals ruling us any more!
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