Saturday 29 November 2008

Has it ended?

It had stopped raining. The sun was out. Two hundred people had died in the Mumbai terror attacks. The news agencies have fuel to feed themselves for weeks maybe months now. Speculation is and will be rife. People will dole out their quick fix solutions -- I have been guilty of that myself. But as Indians we have seen and have pointed it out before: we might end up forgetting this soon.

People commend the Mumbai spirit; getting back to business. I being a cynic, though please let me know if you think I'm wrong, don't think it has much to do with the spirit as much it has to do with how densely Mumbai is populated. When you have so many people, you only care about those who are in your tribe: people whom you know and interact with, not the faceless strangers whom you see everyday. And if you don't know anyone, or are not yourself impacted by such an attack, it is easy to forget.

The question really is this: do you want to wait for any such future attack to impact you and then take action, or should you take those steps now and prevent you and your loved ones from being affected?

As an individual what can you do? What powers do you have? The answers to both these questions, though many people might tell you otherwise, is NOT "Nothing". I don't know the answers myself but I'm trying to find out. Light a candle, donate blood, donate money, but that's not all that you can do. There has to be more.

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