Lives & Lessons - Mumbai Terror Attack 26/11

They interviewed one of the rescued Taj employees recounting the horror. He virtually had tears in his eyes as he watched the Taj yet again plagued by fire and grenades. His daughter asked him, ‘Daddy is Taj going to come crashing down?’ He looked at her with pride in his eyes and said, ‘Taj will NEVER come crashing down.’

In more than one way the Taj reminds me of our city, our country. Having gone through the worst it still stands tall. Inside rages a battle between those who wish to destroy it and those who are prepared to die saving it.

There is a difference though. The Taj staff exemplified utmost devotion and professionalism, risking their own lives time and again. These are the people who were entrusted with the responsibility of running an organization so as to say, fulfilled that responsibility till the last moment! There are people entrusted with the responsibility of governing our country. I wish I could call them leaders but ‘politicians’ is the only tag they deserve, and I’m being lenient here! Today I wish our politicians had even 5% of the same devotion. They don’t! While Ratan Tata obviously spent sleepless nights thinking about ‘his’ Taj, our politicians I’m sure, couldn’t have cared less.

People are frustrated, people are angry and everyone has an opinion as they necessarily must! One celebrity said that our politicians are so insensitive to everything that’s happening that an extreme step needs to be taken to jolt them and make them take notice. (No, the terror strike wasn’t extreme enough for them.) She advocated that the whole of Delhi should refuse from voting unless Shivraj Patil, the Home Minister of India is either sacked or resigns. I don’t wish to indulge in an account his incessant failures because that list would end up going around our planet twice and worse yet – he would still be just as ignorant!

The counter argument for this was that the moment you don’t vote, you are of absolutely NO VALUE to the politicians. One of the following things might happen – 1) A dummy vote will reach the ballot in your name anyways or 2) An illegal Bangladeshi immigrant will be issued a ration card and a voting card by some God forsaken corporator at an ‘ultra-super-fast-track’ speed just to compensate for your vote or 3) We already know how politicians use the power of 100 rupees, a blanket and a bottle of alcohol. You and I may not be swayed by them but a huge portion of our population is. I still feel we all MUST go out there and vote for the right candidate. (I know it’s a difficult job because they’re a rare commodity.) Bottom line – lets keep this in our mind and do something about it!

They say the casualties would be even lesser had the NSG forces been deployed in Mumbai earlier. But nope! It took hours for some ‘joker’ to awoken by his ‘babu’ as they ‘just’ received an order from the ‘high command’.

“Oh we have something called NSG too? Wow! Yeah yeah send them in. As long as there’s no reduction in the ‘Z’ security for myself, we can send some ‘numbers’ there to take care of things.”

Isn’t it such a telling fact that we have these elite forces ONLY in Delhi and no where else. Our politicians just don’t seem to feel safe enough, do they now? Of course it doesn’t matter if rest of the country lives in constant insecurity and danger.

This time something was different though. The other countries – America, Israel, England and so on, not only sent their standard template of ‘heartfelt condolences’ BUT actually offered help in terms of intelligence or anti-terror forces. It’s sad! Why do we react ONLY when a part of OUR house catches fire? The whole world is concerned (and rightly so) about the 8 foreign nationals that sadly died in the strike, but why has it taken so long and so many innocent Indian lives, for the world to take notice and actively react to this horror that has plagued India for so long? This is NOT an attempt to demean or malign anyone. I am getting at the fact that - whether it be an Indian, an American, a Pakistani, a Canadian or any national, its a human being who dies. A life ceases to exist and takes away the light from the lives of the loved ones. Its high time the world stops merely ‘talking’ and actually takes united ACTIONS to cure the world of this demon. May it be India, Pakistan or someone as powerful as America, NO ONE is safe. A terrorist who has already chosen to die after killing is a threat to even the mightiest! Its time everyone ACTUALLY got together to deal with terrorism.

Let’s make sure we don’t ‘forget’ soon, all that we have lost and all that we have learnt. God bless the souls of all those who have lost their lives in this ordeal and those who have laid their lives in the line of duty to end it.