Shame

Extraordinary circumstances evoke extreme reactions and therefore need to be handled with extreme caution. The Mumbai terror strike brought death, devastation and shame. The vultures who wrote the script had planned it like this. What more could they have expected. They got round the clock television coverage as they held a nation of a billion plus population to ransom. And even though everything went according to their script what they failed to calculate was the enormous, once in a life time, kind of opportunity that they presented to the mighty Indian nation.
History is replete with examples. Opportunity travels alongside death and devastation. Japan was able to grab it because the death and devastation caused by the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrapped in shame. America’s 9/11 also had shame written all over. And now if those who planned the terror strikes in India are not taken care of once and for all the opportunity that has come alongside the Mumbai shame would also be lost for good.
Of what good is the nuclear deterrent if we can be bled like this. The lives of those who are still lucky to be alive are in no way more important than those who have laid down their lives. Let not a single drop of Indian blood go waste. Those who are coming out on to the streets be ware, it is no candle light party out there. Everything comes for a cost and the cost has to be borne by everyone.
Let’s not look up for any kind of action to the Singh who became king by buying votes in parliament. Nor from the BJP that abused the ATS chief a day before his death and later turned up at his residence to offer a compensation of Rs one crore to his family. Nor the communists for whom shame is a decent word. Only a rabid dog could have said this: not a dog would have visited the Unnikrsihnan house had it not been the major’s house. Where and when in history has a martyr’s father been treated like this? What could be more shameful than this?
The solution is lurking somewhere around in the dark. If India is crying for leadership, this crisis has the potential to throw up one. Candle light vigils will just add C02 to the already polluted environment. To quote my editor in Chief Mr Rajdeep Sardesai, “Let the Gateway of India be the Gateway of action” and let there be no peace till the perpetrators of the Mumbai Mayhem are smoked out of their safe holes.

Remembering blast martyrs

After Agartala where? Home Minister Shivraj Patil in between changing his suits can consult an astrologer and try to find out. May be he is able to save some precious lives.
The harsh reality is that bomb blasts will not stop. It can be any city, any neighborhood and any market. The responses would also be the same. Also it is true that the ‘insects’ need to succeed once while the intelligence and security agencies will have to succeed all the time. If the national security advisor is to be believed many such attacks have been foiled but still they have been able to strike with an alarming regularity.
The terrorists want to spread panic, trigger communal clashes and shatter the economic bases of our country. Even if the blasts can not be stopped surely the evil designs of those behind these blasts can be prevented from succeeding.
First and foremost we should immediately stop calling those dying in bomb blasts as victims. It is a war and those who die in war are not victims but martyrs. The media both electronic and print would better serve the country by calling them martyrs. Do we call a soldier who dies on the front a victim? If the enemy is killing our men inside our territory does that make them victims? No. Anyone who is dying in a bomb blast is sacrificing his or her life. The state should cremate them with full state honors as inspector Sharma who died in the Delhi encounter was cremated. Also there should be no word such as compensation. If any financial help has to come at all, it has to come in the form of a reward. After all nothing can compensate a life laid down for the sake of the country.
There is no dearth of people willing to give the supreme sacrifice when it comes to the country. What we need is true leadership. Not a home minister who changes his suits when bombs are ripping the country apart.
We are a country of Gandhi and it is time we challenge the terrorists to come and strike wherever and whenever they want. We won’t stop from visiting our religious places or our markets. Our economy will continue to thrive. No matter how many you kill. Every Indian is a soldier. How many will you kill? Hain sar bhi bahut aur baazoo bhi bahut, Katte bhi chalo aur badte bhi chalo
Having said that, the country demands a serious response from those sitting in north and south block. Identify the insects and kill them in their holes.

democracy at what cost?

Nothing comes for free. May be at a later stage but a price has to be paid for everything. And to determine the price that one has to pay for his or her actions, the easiest way out is to believe that the price would be 'the actual cost'.
So if prime minister Manmohan Singh is fooling his way through the Nuclear deal on the basis of a confidence vote that he has managed to win by buying MPs, the price that he will have to pay will be recorded in history.
It's not just the Prime Minister who will pay the price. Since he represents the aspirations of over 100 crore people the country too will have to pay a price. Future generations also will have to pay a price.
Future generations will have to pay a price because their ancestors did not rise in revolt when a remote controlled Prime Minister mortgaged the country's soverignity.

The present generation is already paying a price. For the days when the polity degenrated. When everyone watched with glee as thugs and scoundrels took upon themselves to safeguard democracy.
Democracy in its present form in India is a sham. Present day rulers are manipulators and no better than dictators.

India is paying a price for staying indoors during elections.

A ray of hope from Surat

BJP leader Sushma Swaraj should be taken to Surat immediately. A city where 19 live bombs have already been recovered. She can go diamond shopping there but along with the bomb disposal squads. How else can one ask her to think before she shoots her mouth.
Sushma Swaraj soon after the Bangalore and Ahmedabad blasts said it was an attempt to take away the nation's attention from the 'cash for votes scam' that unfolded in the Indian Parliament. She was hinting at the Congress hand behind the blasts.
What a shame. Our politicians can not think beyond their petty interests. The country and its people be damned.
Surat is in Panic. Infact the same holds true for the whole of Gujarat. The rest of the country is in fear. Terror can strike anywhere, anytime. And amidst this chaos, panic striken Surat has shown the light.
A people-police coordination is the only way out. A vigilant beat constable along with residents can provide the best intelligence. Mysterious objects can be spotted by a vigilant population. And mysterious looking people can be spotted.
The country needs to be on triple high alert all the time.

Tough times ahead

Back to back bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. Where next?
This question is there in the minds of everyone. Mom and Dad called up from Shimla saying they are targetting BJP ruled states and I'm living in one such state, Madhya Pradesh. But than Himachal Pradesh is also a BJP ruled state, I told Dad trying to convince him that there is hardly anything that one can do about it. The fact is that the merchants of death can strike at will where ever they wish to.
That Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh or for that matter any other place where terror blasts have so far not reached, is becuase the perpetrators have chosen to keep it like that. It would be unfair to blame the police. Untill and unless each and everyone of us is cautious and always on the look out for suspicious objects, it will not be possible to prevent what happened in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
I have not heard of a single terror strike in the United States after 9/11. How the Americans have made it possible must be understood.

New- Pinch

It's been a long time that some one has given me a pinch. I got a new pinch recently though. From Savita, my wife, when she noticed me wearing a new T shirt that she had bought the previous day. She just said 'new pinch'.

Back home in my village in Shimla the custom was different. Everytime some one wore something new, it was like really hard. The boys would give a real hard one. One that left bruises.
I don't know how the word and custom reached our village. Must have come from Shimla that was just a day's walk away from our village. The British ruled the country from Shimla during the summers and many stayed there through the year. They rode horses and partyied by bonfires through the year.

My grand dad was one of the many who supplied grass and jungle wood to the British. His name was Narayan Datt. The grass was for the british horses while the wood was for bonfires. Perhaps the word new-pinch was picked by some one from my grand dad's generation. They must have seen the British congratulating each other.